Japan said Tuesday it has lodged a protest over the South Korean foreign minister's remark at a United Nations meeting that the issue of "comfort women" remains unresolved despite a 2015 bilateral pact designed to settle it.
The term "comfort women" is a euphemism used to refer to women who provided sex, including those who did so against their will, for Japanese troops before and during World War II.
"The 2015 Japan-South Korea agreement that acknowledged the final and irreversible settlement of the comfort women issue should be implemented even after the change of administration" in South Korea, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a news conference.