South Korea leader joins attack on Koizumi war shrine visit
( 2001-08-15 14:12) (7)
South Korea's President Kim Dae-Jung on Wednesday added to the criticism of Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a controversial war shrine as "comfort women" staged their own protest.
Several elderly survivors of women forced into sexual slavery for the Imperial army during World War II joined hundreds of activists at an anti-Japanese demonstration in central Seoul.
In a speech to mark the 56th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule, President Kim, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, questioned whether Japan wanted a friendly relationship with its Asian neighbours.
Highlighting his efforts in 1998, after taking office, to end decades of hostility, Kim said "some people in Japan are attempting to distort history, casting dark clouds over Korea-Japan relations again."
The president expressed disappointment at Japan's approval of history books seen as justifying Japan's wartime aggression in Asia and at Koizumi paying tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine. But he hinted Seoul wanted to contain any fallout.
During a visit to Tokyo in 1998, South Korea and Japan agreed to start a new relationship. The Japanese government apologized in an official document for the pain and damage it inflicted on Koreans during the 35 years of colonial rule up to 1945.
Bilateral ties, which had been often tense since World War II, flourished to an unprecedented degree, with Seoul lifting a decades-old ban on Japanese cultural products.
"Many of us had high expectations that the two countries would finally be able to enjoy good neighborly ties," Kim Dae-Jung said.
"To our disappointment, however, some people in Japan are attempting to distort history, casting dark clouds over Korea-Japan relations again," he said.
"How can we make good friends with people who try to forget and ignore the many pains they inflicted on us? How can we deal with them in the future with any degree of trust? Those are questions that we have about the Japanese," he said.
"At the same time, I also noticed many conscientious Japanese citizens watched with apprehension the distortion of history and their prime minister's paying tribute at the controversial war shrine," he said.
"We earnestly hope that Korea-Japan relations will run on a right course on the basis of a firm historical consciousness," he added.
The South Korean government on Tuesday summoned the Japanese ambassador to Seoul to make a formal protest over Koizumi's visit on Monday to the shrine, which honors 2.5 million war dead including 14 war criminals.
There have been several protests in South Korea over Koizumi's visit to the shrine on Monday. Twenty men chopped off the tips of their little fingers in one grisly anti-Japanese gesture.
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