South Korea expressed regrets Wednesday over Japanese Foreign
Minister Nobutaka Machimura's recent remarks on the history
textbooks that whitewash Japan's wartime past.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a press release
Wednesday that Machimura failed to correctly reflect the facts
surrounding the dispute over the textbooks and called on the
Japanese government to correct its distortions of historical
events.
Appearing on a NHK program on Monday, Machimura said no Japanese
history textbooks beautified the militarism and South Korea and
China had yet to specify which passages were wrong in the textbooks
Japan authorized in April this year for adoption in Japanese
schools.
The release rejected Machimura's remarks, saying South Korea
conveyed to Japan in June a list of corrections it wanted to be
made to the history textbooks, and urged Japan to take "sincere"
steps.
The relations between South Korea and Japan turned cold early
this year when Japan intensified its claim over a group of disputed
islets located in the East Sea (Sea of Japan). Both countries claim
the islets are their own territory.
South Korea and Japan also are at odds over Japanese education
authorities' authorization of several kinds of school textbooks
which experts say gloss Japan's wartime past.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry's press release said right
recognition of history is key to the establishment of
forward-looking South Korea-Japan ties.
"On such standing, the South Korean government urged again the
Japanese government to correct the textbooks' distortions over
history," said the release.
(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2005)