Comfort women deal boosts US ties with Japan, Korea

CHRISTMAS brought tidings of comfort, if not exactly joy, to some in South Korea when Tokyo and Seoul announced a "final and irrevocable resolution" of the so-called comfort women issue involving Korean women who (to quote The Japan Times) "were forced into brothels run by the Imperial Japanese military before and during World War II".

But before concluding that the spirit of goodwill came suddenly upon both countries, we need to look closely at the context of the settlement.

Although any progress on this long-running and vexed issue is welcome, there is also an element of expediency involved so far as Japan and the United States are concerned, while Korea seems on the face of things to have settled for a modest "payoff".