|
The Korea-Japan relationship needs to develop through "historical truth," compensation for victims, and reconciliation, President Roh Moo-hyun said Tuesday. In a speech to mark the 86th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement, Roh said, ¡°We need to bring to light the historical truth, apologize and reflect, pay compensation should there be things that need to be compensated, and reconcile.¡±
Roh said victims of Japanese conscription found it hard to swallow that the Korean government at the time of the 1965 Korea-Japan Treaty waived individual claims for compensation. He said that it might be late, but the government should actively work to resolve this issue from now.
 |
|
President Roh Moo-hyun and the first lady sing the national anthem at the 86th March 1 Liberation Day memorial service, which took place in Seoul's Ryu Kwan-sun Memorial Hall on Tuesday. The couple underwent eyelid surgery together in February.
|
 |
|
This is the first time Roh has brought up compensation. The statement is being construed as meaning that while the Korean government is to blame for denying individuals the right to press claims under the treaty, Japan's responsibilities did not end in 1965 and it must face up to them by compensating victims.
The president's foreign policy advisor Chung Woo-seong stressed the government would not make Korea¡¯s examination of its colonial past a matter of diplomatic negotiations. He said the president was merely advising Japan that it needs to start resolving claims from victims like "comfort women¡± so that the two nations can put their troubled past behind them.
The 1965 treaty made no mention of the comfort women forced into sexual slavery, conscripted laborers sent to Sakhalin Island, or conscripted Korean victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, but some of them are currently suing the Japanese government.
(Shin Jeong-rok, jrshin@chosun.com )
|
