By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter



Ban Ki-moon, left, minister of foreign affairs and trade, shakes hands with his Japanese counterpart Taro Aso, ahead of talks at BEXCO in Pusan (Busan), Monday. / Yonhap

PUSAN _ The two foreign ministers from South Korea and Japan failed to narrow their opinion gaps regarding Japanese politicians’ periodic visit to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, at their meeting here on Monday.
Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Aso was thought to have come to South Korea with a mission to mend the two countries’ relations that deteriorated after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the Yasukuni shrine, which includes memorials to convicted war criminals, last month.

In a good-will gesture, the first thing Aso did after arriving in this port city was to lay flowers at a monument of Lee Soo-hyun, a South Korean university student who died in 2001 after saving a Japanese who fell onto the subway tracks in Tokyo.

But the Japanese government’s stance on politicians’ visit to the shrine turned out to have not changed at all.

During the one-hour meeting, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ban Ki-moon expressed his hope to Aso that Japanese politicians could put into action their words of ``apology’’ over the past wrongdoings, according to a South Korean official.

The Japanese minister, however, reacted to this request at a background press briefing by saying that the controversial issue has already been fully discussed during Ban’s meeting with Koizumi in Japan late last month.

It was the first meeting between the two ministers since Aso took office on Oct. 31. Aso enraged South Koreans last year by claiming that Koreans voluntarily adopted Japanese names during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Answering Ban’s question on whether there has been any progress over South Korea’s request in 2001 for Japan to build a new monument, aiming to replace the Yasukuni shrine, Aso only said that his country’s lawmakers are discussing the issue but the ruling party and the opposition have different opinions.

Aso expressed his hope for a successful summit of President Roh Moo-hyun and Koizumi, which will take place on Nov. 18 on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. He also requested that Roh visit Japan this year.

The Yasukuni shrine is dedicated to the 2.5 million Japanese who have died in wars or civil wars since 1853. Among them, 14 class A war criminals, who were executed after the Tokyo war tribunal in 1948, are enshrined.

Koizumi paid his respects last month to mark the beginning of a regular autumn event at the shrine. It was his fifth visit since becoming Prime Minister in April 2001 and the first since a recent Osaka High Court ruling that the visits violate Japan’s constitutional division of religion and the state.

In an attempt to soothe the public opposition, Koizumi made the visit in a business suit rather than traditional Japanese dress. He did not enter the inner chamber of the shrine either.

Koizumi might have tried to suggest that the visits are personal. But as in the past, he used an official car to go there, accompanied by his aides.

im@koreatimes.co.kr