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Korea and Japan opted to cover up the 1973 kidnap of dissident Korean opposition leader Kim Dae-jung by Korean agents in Tokyo for the sake of recently restored ties between the two countries. The decision emerges from Foreign Ministry documents declassified on Sunday.
On Aug. 8 1973, the later president and Nobel peace laureate was kidnapped after a meeting with the leader of the Democratic Unification Party in Room 2212 of the Hotel Grand Palace in Tokyo. He was released in Seoul after 129 hours of captivity.
According to the documents, prime minister Kim Jong-pil and his Japanese counterpart Kakuei Tanaka met in Tokyo on Nov. 2 of the same year and agreed to bring "political closure" to investigations of the kidnapping. Kim passed on a letter from president Park Chung-hee to Tanaka offering the president¡¯s ¡°sincere regrets¡± for the diplomatic flare-up that followed the incident. Tanaka, told that one suspected kidnapper had been reprimanded, responded he had ¡°the highest respect¡± for Seoul¡¯s dedication to investigating the incident and said his Cabinet was willing to close the case.
But despite evidence uncovered by the Japanese investigation, Seoul refused to admit the involvement of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.
The documents are part of a 17,000-page dossier related to some 191 incidents the ministry decided to release after a fresh review this year. It had kept them under wraps even after the 30-year seal expired citing national security and the protection of privacy.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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