Around 1,000 academics in South Korea and Japan in a statement Wednesday said the 1910 annexation treaty between the two countries was invalid under international law. The statement, signed by 587 South Korean and 531 Japanese academics, was announced in a press conference at the upper house of the Diet in Tokyo and came out just two months after a similar letter was signed by 200 intellectuals in both countries. Among the Japanese signatories of the letter, 228 are historians.

"The fact that over 1,000 people signed the statement is an amazing achievement that demonstrates the sense of moral duty by intellectuals in Asia beyond ethnic boundaries," said Lee Tae-jin, professor emeritus at Seoul National University. "I think it is especially meaningful that such a large number of Japanese historians took part." The intellectuals said they plan to draw more support amid signs that around 200 Chinese intellectuals and more scholars in other Asian countries are getting ready to take part in the movement.

Ahead of the press conference, Haruki Wada, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, led a delegation of academics who met Japan's National Strategy Minister Satoshi Arai and delivered a statement calling on the Japanese prime minister to apologize for the country's colonization of its Asian neighbors during World War II. Wada quoted Arai as saying he was "sincerely considering" the matter.