|
Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan on Monday said joint Korean-Japanese events commemorating 60 years since the end of colonial rule should be "reviewed." The remarks come after a chill entered the Korea-Japan Friendship Year over renewed Japanese efforts to claim the Korean-administered Dokdo islets and publication of a textbook whitewashing the island country's wartime atrocities.
Lee told a meeting of senior officials at the Prime Minister's Office, "In view of the strained relationship with Japan over issues involving textbooks and Dokdo, we should give more weight to planning projects marking the liberation's 60th anniversary rather than counter the issues directly," spokesman Lee Kang-jin said.
An official said this was in effect an instruction to cut down on events conducted jointly with Japan.
Meanwhile, the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians Federation on Monday dispatched a five-member bipartisan delegation to Japan to protest against Tokyo's claim of sovereignty over Dokdo and distortions of Korean history in a middle school textbook backed by a rightwing organization.
(Kwon Dae-yol, dykwon@chosun.com )
|
