SEOUL, June 2 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's foreign minister nominee on Friday met with the victims of sexual slavery during World War II ahead of the parliamentary confirmation hearing next week.
Kang Kyung-wha, who was nominated as the first foreign minister under the Moon Jae-in government, visited the "House of Sharing" outside Seoul to meet the so-called comfort women victims, according to local media reports.
Comfort women are a euphemism for Korean and other countries' women who were forced into sex enslavement for Japanese military brothels before and during the war.
Kang's visit came ahead of the parliamentary hearing to confirm her nomination, scheduled for next Wednesday. If confirmed, she would become the country's first female foreign minister.
Kang, 62, had served as a special policy adviser to the UN chief before being named as a foreign minister. She is known to be a human rights expert and has much interest in the wartime sex slavery issue.
The comfort women victims have strongly protested against the December 2015 agreement, which was reached between the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe-led cabinet and the previous South Korean government.
Under the deal, the two countries reached the "final and irreversible" agreement on the comfort women issue in return for about 9 million U.S. dollars in compensation.
The victims, mostly in their late 80s or higher, refused to receive any money from the unrepentant Japan, calling for a sincere apology from Abe and damages for the wartime crime against humanities.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in held a phone call with Abe after his inauguration last month, saying South Koreans cannot emotionally accept the comfort women agreement.
Moon's remarks indicated the renegotiations or the scrapping, of the December 2015 agreement.
