U.S. has certainly been wanting this to happen since both Japan and Korea are longtime allies of the U.S. and this estranged relationship has prevented better cooperation.

Technically, Japan and South Korea normalized their diplomatic ties 50 years ago, but this wasn't included in the Normalization Treaty because forced prostitution, coerced sex just was taboo to even talk about.

The first comfort women didn't actually come forward until 1992, and since then, the issue has really been kicked up. Japan issued a 1993 acknowledgement on this. It's called the Kono Agreement. But in recent years, South Korea has been wanting an apology to go much further.

Japan admitted the Imperial Army ordered the building of these brothels and the trafficking of the women. And now that it's been 70 years, there are only 46 remaining comfort women still alive in South Korea. So also in this deal, Japan is going to pay 1 billion yen - that's about 8 million U.S. dollars - to provide social services and health care to the surviving victims.

U.S. has certainly been wanting this to happen since both Japan and Korea are longtime allies of the U.S. and this estranged relationship has prevented better cooperation.

North Korea has certainly, in the past, used detainees to initiate diplomatic exchanges with the United States.

Japan is formally apologizing and admitting the state was responsible for the system of comfort stations or brothels for soldiers in which mostly teenage girls were expected to service 60 to 70 men a day. That is from a U.N. report.