Japan PM's apology to Korea over colonial rule fuels claim fears

Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan apologised yesterday for Korea's suffering under colonisation, despite concerns the gesture could reignite calls for wartime compensation.

Mr Kan is seeking to prevent ties with major trading partner South Korea from being dragged back into periodic disputes stemming from Japan's often-brutal 1910-45 colonisation of the peninsula and a territorial row over nearby islets.

"It is easy for the side that inflicted the pain to forget, while those who suffered that pain cannot easily forget," he said in a statement to mark the centenary of Japan's annexation of the Korean peninsula on 29 August.

"I express a renewed feeling of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology for the tremendous damage and suffering caused by colonial rule."

The statement apologised specifically to South Korea, in contrast to earlier apologies by Japan for wartime actions made broadly to its Asian neighbours.

Many Koreans were forced to fight as front-line soldiers, work in slave-labour conditions or serve as prostitutes in brothels operated by the military during the occupation.

Bitter memories still run deep among South Koreans, who have been unhappy with comments from Japanese politicians and school textbooks that critics say whitewash its militaristic past.

Mr Kan's apology is in line with a landmark 1995 statement to Asian countries by then-prime minister Tomiichi Murayama to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

MPs from both ruling and opposition parties have voiced concerns such an apology from Mr Kan could lead to more compensation claims from wartime victims, but Mr Kan said claims had been settled under a 1965 pact establishing diplomatic ties.

Tokyo's relations with Seoul chilled during former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's 2001-06 tenure when he visited the Yasukuni Shrine, seen by Japan's neighbours as a symbol of the country's past militarism.

However, ties between Asia's biggest and fourth-biggest economies have improved. South Korea was Japan's third-largest export market in 2009 and the y have worked together to fight the global financial crisis.

They are also showing a united front on nuclear-armed North Korea. Tokyo has backed Seoul's tough stance following the sinking in March of a naval ship blamed by the South on Pyongyang.

Mr Kan also said he wanted to hand over documents from the 1392-1910 Joseon Dynasty to South Korea and vowed to further deepen ties. He said South Korean president Lee Myung-bak had welcomed the statement in a telephone call.

However, South Korean public reaction was more mixed.

"The offer to return the royal documents is just an exaggerated form of such repeated apologies that have no real content," said Kim Tae-hyuk, 28, a company intern in Seoul. "I would like to see Japan as a whole give a sincere apology."

Japan's occupation of Korea ended when it surrendered to the US in 1945 at the end of the Second World War. The peninsula was divided into separate regions, leading to a communist North and capitalist South.

Tokyo has a history of discord with North Korea, which has admitted kidnapping its citizens and conducted long-range rocket tests over its main island.