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Japan on Wednesday called for an apology from the South Korean government for the 1973 abduction by South Korean agents of then-dissident Kim Dae-jung on Japanese soil. Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura was responding to a report by a National Intelligence Service truth commission that concluded president Park Chung-hee probably at least tacitly approved the abduction. South Korea has not formally acknowledged responsibility.
"I know that some people believe Japan attempted to find a political solution to the incident,¡± Machimura said. ¡°But at the time, Japan made great efforts to investigate but failed to find out the truth. It will be never acceptable if South Korea keeps holding Japan responsible." He added there is an open file on the incident in Japan.
It remains to be seen whether Seoul will apologize for having violated Japanese sovereignty or whether Japanese authorities will resume their investigation of the incident.
After being briefed by Yu Myung-hwan, South Korean ambassador to Japan, Japanese Senior Vice Foreign Minister Hitoshi Kimura also demanded that South Korea apologize for violating Japan's sovereignty and try to prevent a recurrence. Yu promised to convey the demand to his government. Visiting the Japanese Foreign Ministry that day, Yu gave Kimura a copy of the truth commission report.
In 1973, then opposition leader Kim Dae-jung was kidnapped at a hotel in Tokyo and spirited to South Korea. Almost immediately, suspicion fell on the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (the predecessor of the National Intelligence Service). But the investigation came to an end after political compromises that the two governments reached in 1973 and 1975, ostensibly on the assumption that they could not confirm any involvement by South Korean government agencies. The latest investigation pulls the rug out from under that diplomatic fiction.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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