Japan says it takes South Korea's anger seriously
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-12-06 13:37

Japan has tried to reassure South Korea it takes Seoul's anger "seriously", amid a lingering row over the way Tokyo commemorates its wartime past.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso sent a letter to his South Korean counterpart Ban Ki-Moon to thank him for the warm reception last month at an Asia-Pacific meeting in Busan, the foreign ministry official said.

The letter said Japan "takes seriously the South Korean people's feelings over the past" and stressed "the importance of promoting friendship and cooperation between Japan and South Korea in general terms," she said.

Many Koreans remain bitter about Japan's harsh colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945 and feel that Japan has yet to atone for atrocities committed during the period.

The ministry official said the letter had been sent out of "courtesy" but it could also aim to calm down a bilateral diplomatic row.

At the center of the dispute is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, which honors war dead including convicted war criminals and is seen by Seoul and Beijing as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Aso, who was appointed foreign minister in a reshuffle in October, also supports visiting the shrine.

Japan has been moving to repair relations with South Korea at a time that tensions with China keep spiralling.

Koizumi on Monday shrugged off the neighboring countries' objections to his shrine visits, after Beijing called off a customary three-way meeting this month between China, Japan and South Korea.

"Yasukuni is no longer an effective diplomatic playing card. It is not going to be that, even if China and South Korea attempt to make it so," Koizumi told reporters.

Koizumi says he visits Yasukuni shrine to mourn the dead and recommit Japan to pacifism and has repeatedly apologized for wartime atrocities.