President Park Geun-hye positively evaluated the ongoing negotiations with Tokyo over the issue of its wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women, in an interview last Friday, saying the talks have made “considerable progress” and are now at the final stage.

Her remarks raised hopes that Seoul and Tokyo could break their impasse over the thorny issue and move their relationship forward. But some critics in Japan took her comments with a grain of salt, suspecting she was pressuring Tokyo to make concessions.

“There has been considerable progress on the issue of the comfort women (former sex slaves) and we are in the final stage of our negotiations,” she said in an interview with the Washington Post.

“So, I think we can expect to look forward to a very meaningful 50th anniversary of the normalization of our diplomatic ties.”

A negative outlook of the bilateral talks has so far prevailed with both sides having reportedly repeated their positions during their negotiations.

Seoul has long called on Tokyo to take “legal” responsibility for the victims and officially apologize to them, while Tokyo argues the issue has already been settled under a 1965 treaty that normalized the two countries’ diplomatic ties.

Some observers noted that the two sides’ negotiations might have made much headway during their eighth and latest round of director general-level talks, which were held in Tokyo last Thursday.

An official at Seoul’s Foreign Ministry refused to confirm if there has been any progress in the recent round of the negotiations, saying that Seoul and Tokyo have agreed not to reveal what is being negotiated.

Regarding Park’s positive outlook of the negotiations, Japan’s Nihon Geizai Shimbun said that there were views that her remarks about the “considerable progress” appeared intended to urge Tokyo to make concessions.

The so-called comfort women issue has been one of the thorniest issues, which Seoul views as a critical wartime human rights issue that goes beyond the bilateral relationship. Tokyo has long claimed that there is no clear evidence that Japan as a state forcibly mobilized Korean women for sexual servitude.

With many Korean victims ― mostly in their late 80s ― already dead, Seoul has ratcheted up pressure on Tokyo to address the issue. Last Thursday, two of the victims died of old age, bringing the number of surviving victims to 50.

Meanwhile, Japan is reportedly considering sending Fukushiro Nukaga, the chairman of the Japan-Korea Parliamentarians’ Union, to an event that the Japanese Embassy in Seoul plans to hold to mark the 50th anniversary of the normalization of the bilateral relationship next Monday.

Reports said that Tokyo initially considered sending Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida for the ceremony, but decided not to due to the ongoing parliamentary deliberations on the passage of security related laws.

Seoul is also considering sending a high-level official to Tokyo to attend an anniversary event to be held in Japan on the same day.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)