The DPRK welcomed a recent ruling by a Japanese court that former sex slaves for Japanese WWII soldiers should be paid compensation, stressing that the Tokyo government can never get away from responsibility for the wartime atrocities Japan committed during the past war.

The Korean Central News Agency on May 11 reported that the DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman called the ruling last month by the Yamaguchi District Court "a comparatively fair decision."

The statement was made after the Yamaguchi District Court in western Japan on Apr. 28 ordered the government to pay 300,000 yen each to three of the 10 south Korean plaintiffs who had demanded a total 564 million yen and an official apology. The sum was not large but the victory was symbolic and historic, as it was the first verdict by a Japanese court on the wartime Japanese government's role in forcing women from occupied Asia to serve in front-line brothels as so-called comfort women.

Japan has so far refused state compensation to the women, offering only privately-raised funds, incurring anger of Koreans, Taiwanese, and People of the Philippines.

"The government has neglected its responsibility for the comfort women's recovery from their hurt," presiding judge Chikashita Kideaki told the court. He meant "The government has an obligation to take measures to repair the wartime anguish suffered by the former comfort women."

Although the court decision draw voices of discontent from some supporters of the plaintiffs, as it turned down their demand for an official apology from the Japanese government, the ruling surely was a meaningful step as it noted Japan holds the responsibility for making state-level compensation for its sexual slavery crime.

And also the verdict was significant in that it set a precedent for the two other Korean and three other South East Asian "comfort women" cases pending in the Tokyo District Court.

However, as expected, Japan's Foreign Ministry voiced regret over a landmark court ruling, while the Japanese government has appealed against the ruling on May 8, saying that the court overstepped its bounds.

A north Korean official in an interview by KCNA criticized the Tokyo authorities' appeal, saying "the Japanese government lodged an appeal in defiance of elementary human ethics, morality and international law. This revealed that the moral inferiority and shamelessness of the present Japanese authorities have already reached the extremity of sub-humanity."

Tokyo has so far refused direct compensation or to make an official apology to surviving "comfort women" who was forced to serve in front-line brothels, and has maintained the attitude the DPRK spokesman described as "an outright challenge to human ethics, morality and international law."

Since the "comfort women" issue was first raised in 1992 in the UN, the international public has consistently demanded Japan make state compensation to surviving victims so that they can restore dignity as human beings. Instead of making official compensation, the Tokyo government has set up a private body called the Asian Women's Fund to distribute "atonement money" to former "comfort women," from the fund collected from Japanese people, to parry international criticism.

What should be noted here is that Japan has been taking relief measures for Japanese soldiers and the bereaved families of the war dead since the 1950s.

The DPRK delegates said in April in the UN that Japan's indifference to its past atrocities resulted from Japan's long continued contempt for other Asian countries. While the bereaved families of the Japanese war dead in WWII receive large sums of annual compensation from the national budget, the government tries to pay "atonement money" to surviving "comfort women" from contributions collected from Japanese citizens.

The unfair "Japan first, Asia next" policy made the DPRK UN delegation to describe "Asian Women's Fund" as an embodiment of the Japanese practice of discriminating against other Asians.

The Japanese Prime Minister issued a "letter of apology," not official one but a letter explaining his personal feeling, to the victims, when the AWF was established. Regarding this point, north Korea pointed out that "if the Prime Minister's `apology' is sincere, the government of Japan will be able to recognize its legal responsibility. And also if that `apology' is true, the responsibility should be borne by the government itself, not by an individual person or any `private fund.'"

Asian countries concerned have insisted that "comfort women issue" is a matter for which state legal responsibility should be recognized by Japan, as it is a crime organized and committed by the Japanese government and the Japanese army in the past.

The KCNA said "No matter how hard the Japanese authorities may try, they cannot evade the legal and moral responsibility for the crime. The Japanese government should unconditionally admit and apologize for the anti-ethical crime of the blackest days and fully discharge its state responsibility and obligation in this regard."