16, Jahamunro 9-gil, Jongno-Gu Seoul ROK 110-043 Tel +82 2 723 5051 Fax +82 2 6919 2004 Email pspdint@pspd.org
[April 27, 2015]
Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Vice President and President of the Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Honorable John A. Boehner Speaker of the House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 Cc: Representative Kevin McCarthy, Majority Leader │ The US House of Representative Representative Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader │ The US House of Representative Senator Mitch McConnell, Majority Leader │ The US Senate Senator Harry Mason Reid, Minority Leader │ The US Senate Senator Bob Corker, Chairman │ Senate Foreign Relations Committee Representative Edward R. Royce, Chairman │ House Foreign Relations Committee Representative Mike Honda │ The US House of Representative Secretary John Forbes Kerry │ The US Department of State Ambassador Mark Lippert │ The US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea
Dear Mr. President of the Senate and Mr. Speaker, We are the members of four civil society organizations of the Republic of Korea – Women’s Forum for Peace and Diplomacy, Korean Women’s Bar Association, Civil Peace Forum, and People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy – which are working toward reconciliation and peace-building in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia. We are writing to you out of conviction that much greater progress should be made toward reconciliation and peace in Asia region on the occasion of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit and speech in Washington D.C. on April 29. This letter requests you, members of the US Congress, to urge Mr. Abe to voice clearly and publicly a "heartfelt apology” for its colonial rule and aggression, including military sexual slavery, known to the world as 'comfort women' during and before the World War II in his upcoming speech before the joint session of the US Congress. At the outset, we would like to express our deep appreciation for the adoption of House Resolution 121 in July 2007, which called Japan to unequivocally acknowledge, apologize, and be responsible for the coercive recruitment and the enslavement of women forced to work as sex slaves during the World War II. With the resolution, US reminded the international community of the importance of
1