South Korea urges Japan to stop marring war apology

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun urged
Japan on Wednesday to stop all actions that put its apology for
its past war of aggression in doubt, saying Tokyo’s neighbors
were justifiably upset.

Japan’s ties with South Korea and China have been strained
over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni war
shrine and cabinet members’ comments that critics say justify
and embellish Japan’s war of aggression.

“Japan has already apologized,” Roh said in a speech
marking a 1919 uprising in South Korea against Japanese
colonial rule.

“We are objecting to actions that negate that apology,” Roh
said.

Japan colonized the Korean peninsula from 1910 until its
defeat in World War Two in 1945. Many in South and North Korea
and China see Japanese leaders’ visits to Yasukuni shrine,
where convicted war criminals are honored among its 2.5 million
war dead, as deeply offensive.

Roh noted he had made a call a year ago for Japan to
overcome its militarist legacy and make sincere efforts to
improve ties with the South.

“But in the past year, with the shrine visits, distortion
in history textbooks and the Tokto issue, nothing has changed
much,” he said.

South Korea has protested against Tokyo’s approval of
history textbooks that Seoul says whitewash atrocities
committed in Korea, China and other parts of Asia.

South Korea and Japan are also locked in a territorial
dispute over two rocky islets — called Tokto in Korean and
Takeshima in Japan and occupied by South Korea — midway
between the two countries.

“It is natural, when the situation is like this, for our
people to believe Japan may be trying to justify its history of
aggression and control and to return to the road of
domination,” Roh said.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama apologized
for its colonial past in 1995 and Koizumi repeated it last
year.

But Koizumi has said his annual visits to the shrine are to
pray for peace and “a matter of the heart.” He has also
described outside criticism as abnormal.

Roh rejected the logic and said what counted was how
neighboring countries that had been victimized felt and not
what the Japanese leader said.

Japan needed to act with conscience and win the trust of
the international community if it wanted to become a true world
leader, Roh said.

South Korea’s foreign ministry said earlier this week its
commercial and cultural ties with Japan would not suffer
despite its push for Japan to change over the history row.

Japan’s top government spokesman Shinzo Abe said he had not
yet heard the details of Roh’s speech but noted there were
10,000 people involved in bilateral exchanges.

“I believe forward-looking relations will be to the benefit
of both countries,” he said. “I want President Roh to look
carefully at Japan’s protection of freedom, democracy and human
rights and its efforts to bring peace to the world.”