U.S. President Barack Obama urged Japan on Friday to settle disputes over the issue of women, mostly Koreans, who were forced to provide sex to Imperial troops in Japan's wartime military brothels, calling it a "terrible" human rights violation.
"This was a terrible and egregious violation of human rights," Obama said at a joint press conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye following their summit at the Blue House presidential office in Seoul.
Many women who were forced to work in the military brothels, euphemistically called "comfort women" in Japan, were from the Korean Peninsula.