(VOVworld) - Senior Japanese and Republic of Korean diplomats held a seventh round of talks Monday in Seoul on the issue of so-called Korean “comfort women” for the Imperial Japanese Army but apparently made no significant progress.

Former South Korean “wartime sex slaves” marched in the streets in Seoul on January 25th, 2012 (Photo: Yonhap)

Junichi Ihara, head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, said following talks with Lee Sang Deok, head of the Republic of Korean Foreign Ministry’s Northeast Asian Affairs Bureau, that they are still in the stage of listening to each other’s position. South Korea has urged Japan to squarely face the issue, seeking an official government apology and compensation for the women. It wants a resolution in a manner “satisfactory to the victims.” But Japan insists that issues of compensation were settled through the bilateral agreements that led to the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries in 1965.