A man wearing a mask of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe kneels down in front of a statue of a girl that represents the sexual victims by the Japanese military during a rally in front of Japanese Consulate in Busan, South Korea, January 4, 2017. Kim Sun-ho/Yonhap via REUTERS
TOKYO (Reuters) - A South Korean political vacuum and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's concerns about his conservative political base have rekindled a feud over wartime history, just as tension over North Korea makes cooperation between the U.S. allies as vital as ever.
The row over "comfort women", as those forced to work in Japanese wartime military brothels are known, coincides with uncertainty over Donald Trump's stance towards North Korea, which has launched a series of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions, when he takes over as U.S. president on Jan. 20.
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