South Korea raises questions over 'comfort women' deal

Frayed ties with Japan deteriorated further Wednesday as a South Korean government task force highlighted flaws in a 2015 agreement on "comfort women".

In a 31-page report, investigators said former President Park Geun-hye's administration made too many concessions to Tokyo over compensation to Korean women forced into sex slavery under Japanese rule.

The Foreign Ministry team said one billion Japanese yen ($8.8 million) financial compensation did not "sufficiently reflect" the views of the now elderly victims.

It called for an uncompromising long-term approach to handling the dispute.

The 2015 agreement purportedly resolved the issue "irreversibly" under Park, whose impeachment led to the election of President Moon Jae-in in May.

Following his election, Moon told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that most South Koreans "cannot emotionally accept the comfort women agreement."

The main complaint of Koreans has been that Japan has failed to sincerely face up to the atrocities committed during its colonial rule of the peninsula from 1910-45.

"Based on the findings, the government will gather opinions of the victims and others involved going forward with a focus to be placed on a victims-centered approach," Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said, according to Yonhap News Agency.

While Seoul has suggested a two-track approach to relations with Japan to set historical issues aside from modern problems such as handling North Korea, Abe's government has rejected any renegotiation of the 2015 deal.

Of an estimated 200,000 Korean women forced into Japanese military brothels, only 32 remain alive.