By The Japanese Foreign Minister sort of issues another apology for the annexation of Korea prior to World War II:
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada yesterday called Japan’s forced annexation of Korea an incident that “robbed Koreans of their country” and said he understands how Koreans must have felt at the time.
“The incident that occurred a century earlier was an act that robbed Koreans of their country and inflicted profound wounds on their national pride,” Okada said in a joint press conference with Seoul’s Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan. “We must never forget the victims who still remember the pain of annexation.”
Calling this year a significant turning point in bilateral relations, Okada called for Japan and South Korea to build a genuinely friendly and future-oriented relationship looking into the next century.
Okada arrived in Seoul on Wednesday for a two-day trip.
Exactly 100 years ago in 1910, Japan annexed the Korean Peninsula. The colonization ended in 1945 with Japan’s defeat in World War II.
Okada also said he believed the Yukio Hatoyama administration was continuing to succeed the principles of the 1995 Murayama statement.
This address was significant in that Japan, via its then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, stated that it inflicted tremendous damage and suffering on Asian and other countries “through its colonial rule and aggression.” [Korea Herald]
As I have said before there are too many ultra-nationalists on each side of the Sea that Cannot Be Named for such a statement to really lead to anything of any substance.
7:15 pm on February 13th, 2010 1
But if we name The Sea Which Cannot Be Named, have we not named that sea even so?
/But if you talk about those of whom we do not speak, have you not spoken of that about which we do not talk.
6:39 am on February 14th, 2010 2
FFFUUU-
9:01 am on February 14th, 2010 3
You think Koreans would be in any mood to hear an apology after the most hated Japanese (American) gets a medal at their expense again?
Oh-Noooo!!! Ohno!!!
11:53 am on February 14th, 2010 4
/only if you listen to that which has not been spoken/
2:27 pm on February 14th, 2010 5
2:30 pm on February 14th, 2010 6
But the Koreans won the gold! I swear, in that moment every Korean toilet flushed, pumping the nations collective semen and wet panties out to sea. Where they will inevitably create an eco-disaster on Dokdo's beaches. DAE HAN MIN GUK!!!!
2:44 pm on February 14th, 2010 7
So Solly.
6:20 am on February 15th, 2010 8
Japan is becoming irrelevant next to China. Korea is irrelevant next to China. Japan and Korea are fighting each other when the real enemy is China.