TOKYO: Japan’s foreign minister accused South Korea on Monday of worsening already strained ties by making “illegal” demands for compensation for the sexual abuse of Korean women and use of forced laborers during World War II.

Toshimitsu Motegi, in a diplomatic policy speech in parliament, said a recent South Korean court ruling ordering Japan to compensate 12 South Korean women who were sexually abused in Japanese military brothels during the war was “an abnormal development absolutely unthinkable under international law and bilateral relations.”

“We strongly urge South Korea to correct the violation of international law as soon as possible and restore healthy relations,” Motegi said.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled on Jan. 8 that the Japanese government must give 100 million won ($91,360) to each of 12 elderly women who filed lawsuits in 2013 over their wartime suffering as “comfort women.”

They were among tens of thousands of women across Japanese-occupied Asia and the Pacific who were sent to front-line Japanese army brothels.

The ruling worsened tensions between the two countries, whose relations had already plunged to the lowest level in decades over earlier South Korean rulings on Japan’s actions during its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea’s Supreme Court in 2018 ordered Japanese companies to provide reparations to some South Koreans who were forced to work in their factories during the war.

The dispute over forced labor escalated into a trade dispute and prompted South Korea to threaten to scrap a 2016 military intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan, a key component of their regional defense cooperation with the United States.

Japan has protested the court rulings, saying all wartime compensation issues were settled under a 1965 treaty normalizing relations in which Japan provided $500 million in economic assistance.

Motegi called South Korea “an important neighbor” and said its cooperation with Japan and the United States was “indispensable for regional security,” including the response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

Japan, under a 1995 semi-governmental Asian Women’s Fund, offered payments and apology letters to certified victims of its wartime sexual abuse from five countries, settling disputes with all but South Korea.

In 2015, the then governments of South Korea and Japan reached what was supposed to be a final and irreversible deal to settle the issue with a new fund set up by the Japanese government, but the current South Korean administration of President Moon Jae-in dissolved it, saying the deal was reached without proper consultation with the victims.

AP