You would think this is something that the Japanese government would try and do on the down low sometime in the future because trying to move this statue now would be political suicide for the ROK government:
Cho June-hyuk, South Korean Foreign Ministry‘s Spokesperson
Amid an ongoing debate about relocating the statue of a young girl that symbolizes the comfort women – women forced to serve as sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army – from in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, there are indications that the South Korean government is shifting to a stricter legal stance on the issue.This appears to be motivated by concerns about criticism from the South Korean public, which has been increasing since the governments of South Korea and Japan reached an agreement about the comfort women on Dec. 28, as well as by a string of remarks by Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida that treat the removal of the statue as an established fact.
This is likely to provoke further conflict between the governments of South Korea and Japan.“Let me make this clear: The statue of the young girl was set up by private citizens, and there is nothing that the government can do about it,” South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Cho June-hyuk told domestic reporters and foreign correspondents at the regular press briefing on the afternoon of Jan. 5. [Hankyoreh]
