Great wrong must be fully acknowledged

The "comfort women" are mostly in their 90s now, but it is not their increasing frailty that led to this week's "agreement" between Seoul and Tokyo.

The timing concerned an event held in Beijing on Sept 3. China's "Victory over Fascism" military parade, which marked the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, had one telling moment that made strategists in Washington sit up and take notice.

The attendance of South Korean President Park Geun-hye, the only major US ally to turn up, prodded Washington to lean on Tokyo and Seoul to get an agreement. The pivot, a mild word for what is a major US military redeployment, depends on the pillar of Japan and South Korea cooperating. The plight of the former sex slaves, which Japan euphemistically calls the ianfu, or comfort women, is the main thorn in the side of relations between Seoul and Tokyo.