SEOUL, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's main opposition party continued its condemnation of "diplomatic disaster" under impeached President Park Geun-hye, citing the decision to deploy a U.S. missile defense system and an agreement with Japan on wartime sex slavery.
Woo Sang-ho, floor leader of the main opposition Minjoo Party, told a party meeting that the current diplomatic disaster, including the unilateral decision on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) installation and the agreement with Japan on "comfort women" victims, is the result of the diplomatic failure under the Park government for the past four years.
Seoul and Washington abruptly announced their decision in July last year to deploy one THAAD battery in South Korea's southeastern region by the end of this year, triggering strong oppositions from China and Russia.
Some of opposition lawmakers speculated that President Park's longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil, who is now in custody, may have been involved in the abrupt decision, considering a close relationship between President Park, Choi and arms lobbyist Linda Kim, suspected of representing Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the THAAD.
The agreement on "comfort women," reached on Dec. 28, 2015 between South Korea and Japan, has been under fire as it failed to meet requirements of Japan's legal responsibility and sincere apology for what the victims endured before and during World War II.
"Comfort women" is a euphemism for Korean women who were forced into sex enslavement for Japanese military brothels during the devastating war. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has never accepted the forcible recruitment of Korean teenagers during the Pacific War.
Japan Monday recalled its ambassador to South Korea in Seoul and its consul-general in South Korea's southern port city of Busan for about a week in protest against the bronze, life-size statue of a girl that was erected last month outside the Japanese consulate in Busan to symbolize the teenager victims of Japan's sex slavery.
The Minjoo Party floor leader offered to form a bipartisan amity group, composed of lawmakers, to help resolve the diplomatic disaster, urging the ruling Saenuri Party and the minor opposition People's Party to join the move.
Seven Minjoo Party lawmakers visited Beijing last week to help boost communications between China and South Korea on the THAAD issue.
