Japan`s decision to recall its ambassador appears to have been made in the wake of an influence scandal, ignoring South Korea`s continuing political crisis following the impeachment of Park Geun-hye. With the country expected to launch new elections this year, the interim government of incumbent President Hwang Kyo-ahn will have little legitimacy to lobby, either bilaterally with Japan or domestically with activist groups in South Korea, who are still dissatisfied. In the face of the political winds in South Korea that blew in favour of the opposition after the Park scandal, the prospects for cooperation with Japan on this issue are bleak. (One day, the president of the Minjoo party called the agreement an “unprecedented diplomatic catastrophe.”) On 28 December, Japan and South Korea agreed on how to address the problem of “comfort women”. While the implementation of the agreement is key, this agreement is extremely important to prevent the issue from derailing relations between Tokyo and Seoul. The agreement was announced in the form of parallel statements by Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byong after months of consultations between senior officials of both sides. There are several important elements in this agreement for which Japanese and Korean officials deserve to be recognized. Monday`s agreement, if confirmed by both governments, would remove the main obstacle that prevented the two countries from engaging in diplomacy and cooperating on their common security problems. In particular, given that North Korea is behaving more erroneously, unpredictablely and aggressively under Kim Jong-un, the collapse of relations between Tokyo and Seoul (and thus the inability to cooperate, even trilaterally with the United States) has become one of Washington`s main concerns in East Asia. A senior U.S. State Department official said the agreement was particularly important given the threat posed by North Korea`s nuclear and ballistic program.