Seoul may follow Beijing's lead and submit an application to UNESCO to record for future generations the trauma that "comfort women" experienced and archive them as part of the UN Memory of the World program, a senior Republic of Korea diplomat said on Thursday.

Preserving the painful memories of the "comfort women" is a shared duty of great urgency for East Asia, and is not an issue of "political maneuvering", senior diplomats and observers from China and the ROK said.

Kim Dong-gi, director-general for cultural affairs of the ROK's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a China-ROK public diplomacy forum held in Beijing that he noted Beijing's application, and that the two nations share a common history in this regard.