S.Korea, Japan arguing over girl statue to honor 'comfort women'

South Korea and Japan appear to continue arguing over the removal of a girl's statue symbolizing former Korean "comfort women".

South Korea's Foreign Ministry officials on Wednesday refuted Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda's remarks claiming that the statue's elimination was an "implicit understanding" as part of last December's landmark deal between the two nations.

Under the deal, Seoul and Tokyo agreed to take steps to settle the issue of Korean women forced into Japanese military brothels during World War Two.

A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said that the two-way deal neither implicates such an understanding nor could be interpreted arbitrarily, reaffirming the government's stance that the issue regarding the statue should not be affected by either government as it has been installed voluntarily by a private organization.

Meanwhile, San Francisco's Board of Education has passed a resolution supporting the state of California's new guidelines calling for teaching high school students about Japan's wartime sexual slavery.

The California Department of Education has been collecting public opinions on the 2014-2016 Draft History-Social Science Framework to be concluded in May.

The framework includes the "comfort women" issue in the world history curriculum for grade 10.