Japan, SK commemorate 50 years of ties
Print Edition
The leaders of South Korea and Japan yesterday attended separate ceremonies in their respective capitals to mark the 50th anniversary of the resumption of normal ties — small, mostly symbolic moves that could signal an easing of relations between two of the United States’ key allies.
The US, which sees the neighbors as important military and diplomatic bulwarks in its regional strategy, will welcome the visits by South Korean President Park Geun-hye to a Japan-organized event in Seoul and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to a South Korea-organized event in Tokyo.
But it’s unclear how much will actually change between the neighbors amid lingering bad feelings seven decades after Japan’s World War II surrender.
Many in Seoul are uncomfortable with what is seen as Abe’s right-wing tilt and Tokyo’s push to whitewash its brutal colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
Some in Japan have expressed fatigue and frustration with South Korea’s perceived refusal to recognize Japan’s previous efforts at reconciliation.
South Koreans complain about Japan’s perceived refusal to deal fairly with the issue of women forced by the Japanese military into sexual slavery during Japan’s colonization and World War II.
Since taking office in early 2013, Park has not held official one-on-one talks with Abe, though US President Barack Obama brought them together for a three-way meeting last year.
Park, in a message read by her foreign minister during the Tokyo event, said the two countries must work together to open a new era of cooperation by resolving historical issues that she described as “the biggest obstacle” to better ties.
Abe, in his speech in Tokyo, vowed to cooperate with Park and said economic, cultural and people exchanges between the two countries over the past 50 years have become “invaluable assets.”
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