The Japanese consul general based in South Korea's port city of Busan returned to Tokyo on Monday as a diplomatic row deepened over a recently erected statue that condemns Japan's wartime atrocities, sources said. 

Consul General in Busan Yasuhiro Morimoto boarded a flight to Japan in the morning at Gimhae International Airport near Busan, according to the sources. Around noon, Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine is also scheduled to leave the country in a gesture of protest over the recent installation of the statue, the sources said.

On Friday, Japan announced the plan to recall its diplomats "temporarily," a decision which came a week after a civic group erected the statue of a girl symbolizing South Korean women sexually enslaved by Japanese forces during World War II in front of the Japanese Consulate General building in Busan.

Japan has protested the erection of the statue as a violation of the deal it signed with South Korea in December 2015 to settle the so-called comfort women issue.

Following the deal, Japan has repeatedly demanded the removal of another statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, but South Korea has said the fate of the civic group-erected statue is beyond the government's authority.

As the bilateral row deepened, Tokyo on Friday also announced a halt to ongoing negotiations on a currency swap agreement with South Korea and called off a high-level economic cooperation meeting.

Observers said the departure of the Japanese diplomats' will not be a drawn out affair although the date of their return to South Korea depends on future developments on the diplomatic front. (Yonhap)