Japan will temporarily withdraw its ambassador to South Korea and suspend high-level economic talks because of a new dispute over a statue depicting the wartime "comfort women."
Tokyo's move is a response to Seoul's apparent inaction over the recent installation of one of the statues in front of the Japanese consulate in Busan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Friday.
The term comfort women is a Japanese euphemism for the females who were forced to provide sex for Imperial troops in Japanese military brothels before and during the war.