S. Korean ambassador to Japan offers to resign

TOKYO, April 6 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's top envoy to Japan said Wednesday he has offered to resign upon completing his duty of mending frayed bilateral ties.

Amb. Yoo Heung-soo told Yonhap News Agency by phone that he has been planning to step down this year after the two countries agreed in December to settle their decadeslong dispute over Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women.

The ambassador said he postponed his resignation offer to handle the aftermath of North Korea's nuclear test in January but recently tendered his resignation to President Park Geun-hye.

Yoo added, however, that the row over the "comfort women" has yet to be fully resolved.

Yoo, the then head of the Korea-Japan Friendship Association, was tapped by Park in 2014 for his close ties with the Japanese government and public.

The ambassador spent his childhood in Kyoto, Japan, and served as a leader of an association of South Korean and Japanese lawmakers from 2000-2004.

He also served as chief of the national police agency, governor of South Chungcheong Province and four terms as a lawmaker of predecessors of the current ruling Saenuri Party.

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