On January 9, the Moon Jae-in government announced its plans on handling the 2015 comfort women agreement between South Korea and Japan. Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha stated that the 2015 agreement could not be a true solution to the problem, but said the government would not demand another negotiation since it was an official agreement between two states. In addition, she said that the 1 billion yen for the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation provided by the Japanese government would be funded from the South Korean government's budget and that the government would discuss the future handling of the funds with Japan. The government urged Japan to voluntarily recognize the truth as it is according to the international universal standards and to continue its efforts to restore the honor and dignity of the victims and to heal their psychological wounds.

The government announcement is consistent with the "two-track" policy of the Moon Jae-in government, which has stated that it would handle the comfort women issue from the victim's perspective as a long-term task, while keeping it from affecting South Korea's relationship with Japan. The announcement shows traces of the government's struggle until the very end. The political burden on President Moon Jae-in will not be light, for he has failed to keep his campaign pledge to annul the comfort women agreement and renegotiate a new agreement. Of course, there will be a large number of citizens who will not be able to accept the government's announcement. Immediately, the Justice Party expressed their regrets on the government's failing to demand another negotiation.

However, the government's decision was inevitable. Past historical issues are difficult to solve with short-tem diplomatic negotiations. The South Korean and Japanese governments' attempt to seek a "final and irreversible" resolution in 2015 is actually nothing short of nonsense. Thus we find it commendable that the government defined the comfort women issue as a "universal human rights issue on wartime sexual violence against women" that goes beyond the scope of just the two countries. Also, the government's decision to handle this as a long-term task and to state that "The government will make every effort to restore the honor and dignity of the comfort women victims and to heal their mental wounds" also seems to be the proper way to approach issues of history. This way, the government can prevent historical problems from affecting bilateral relations and can continue to seek future-oriented cooperation.

It is regrettable that Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono protested the latest announcement and said, "It is absolutely unacceptable that the agreement is not being implemented despite that it was a final and irreversible agreement." It is questionable as to whether this was an issue worthy of such an impatient response without any consideration of the opposite party. If the Japanese government wants to restore relations with South Korea, it should, with a broad mind, accept the reason why the South Korean government announced to maintain the agreement despite the political burden.