New South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called for better relations with former colonial ruler Japan yesterday, saying his nation should look to the future instead of dwelling too much on the past.
Lee's address, made at a ceremony marking Korea's 1919 uprising for independence, contrasted with speeches his predecessor Roh Moo-hyun gave on the holiday in recent years, in which he criticized Tokyo for not living up to its repeated apologies.
Lee's speech included no criticism of Japan and no demand for a new apology.
PHOTO: AFP
"South Korea and Japan should build a future-oriented relationship in a pragmatic attitude," Lee said in the nationally televised address. "We should never look away from the truth of history. However, we cannot give up on future relations, bound by the past forever."
On March 1, 1919, hundreds of thousands of Koreans rose up against Japan and demanded independence. Hundreds of people were killed or wounded. The uprising is commemorated in both Koreas, although the anniversary is not a national holiday in the North.
Lee, who assumed office on Monday, has said since his December election that improving relations with the US and Japan would be one of his foreign policy priorities, saying ties with the two countries had frayed under his predecessor.
On the day of his inauguration, Lee held a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and agreed to hold regular summits with Japan and consider reviving talks to tear down trade barriers between the two nations.
South Korea and Japan are key trade partners but have sparred over rows stemming largely from Japan's 1910 to 1945 colonial rule of Korea, including repeated visits by Japanese leaders to a war shrine that critics say glorifies the country's wartime atrocities.
Korea was liberated in 1945, at the end of World War II, and was then divided into two. Lee said the division is not only a matter between the two Koreas, but also the international community.
"We cannot resolve the South-North question with exclusive nationalism," he said. "We should view it as an internal issue, but at the same time as an international issue as well."
North Korea has long called for Seoul and Pyongyang to resolve the problems on the Korean peninsula alone, and the North's state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper reiterated that sentiment yesterday in an editorial marking the uprising anniversary.
"We should never allow any foreign force to intervene" in efforts to unify the peninsula, it said in a report carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency.
Lee, who took office with a promise to boost the economy, also emphasized that South Korea should be forward-looking and pragmatic amid stiff international competition.
"We have too many things to do to remain looking back," he said.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS