THE sudden deal struck in late 2015 by the leaders of South Korea and Japan to settle their dispute over "comfort women" was supposed to be "final and irrevocable". But South Korean groups representing the former sex slaves-tens of thousands of whom were pressed into prostitution by Japan's imperial army during the second world war-had fiercely opposed the deal as a sell-out. One year on, a bronze statue of a teenage sex slave (pictured), set up by one of the civic groups last month outside Japan's consulate in Busan, South Korea's second-largest city, threatens to undermine the agreement. The row, in turn, has upset a short-lived detente between neighbours at a treacherous time.
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