Japan PM heads to Seoul to mend ties hurt by history

TOKYO  - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi headed to Seoul today for a meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to try to patch up ties frayed by disputes over their countries' bitter history.

Seoul is angry at what it sees as Tokyo's failure to face up to its militarism during World War Two, symbolised by Koizumi's annual visits to a Shinto shrine for Japanese war dead.

But prospects of a dramatic turnaround in relations appeared slim as Koizumi has shown little sign of accepting South Korea's request that he stop visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine where some convicted war criminals are honoured along with other Japanese war dead.

Monday's meeting is the latest of "shuttle summits" that began last June, but unlike the past two summits where the leaders met at resorts without their neckties, it would be held at Roh's office and the two would have their ties on.

"We want it to be a 'no-necktie' meeting, but they are the hosts and are the ones to decide," a Japanese official said last week.

In another sign of the chilly state of relations, a different Japanese official said Seoul asked that a scheduled joint news conference by the leaders following the summit be changed to brief joint "remarks," where they would take no questions from the media.

Even the meeting itself seemed to be in jeopardy after some South Korean politicians questioned the need for it, and only last week did the two sides finally manage to set a date.

Japanese officials had insisted on holding the meeting in part as an opportunity to coordinate efforts towards resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis.

WORSENING SENTIMENT

Besides the Yasukuni issue, Tokyo and Seoul have a series of disputes stemming from their past, including a row over the ownership of a number of rocky islets and over a Japanese history textbook that South Korea says whitewashes Japan's wartime atrocities and its brutal 1910-1945 colonial rule over Korea.

A survey released on Sunday found that 57 per cent of South Korean respondents believed that matters concerning Japan's perception of history need to be resolved for a better bilateral relationship.

The poll, conducted by Japan's Kyodo news agency in May, also found that 82 per cent of South Koreans were opposed to Koizumi's Yasukuni visits, and that 75 percent did not have a favourable opinion of Japan.

But the survey, which was also carried out in Japan, found that 41 per cent of Japanese respondents opposed the Yasukuni visits, more than the 31 percent who said Koizumi should continue them.

Pressure on Koizumi to abandon the visits has been increasing even from his predecessors and ruling party members concerned about the damage to Japan's ties with Asian neighbours.

Top officials in Japan's ruling coalition were quoted as saying on Sunday that they support building a new national memorial for the war dead without Yasukuni's historical baggage, an idea that Seoul is expected to raise at Monday's meeting.

The government has shelved a proposal by an advisory panel in 2002 to set up a secular national war memorial, and Koizumi reiterated on Monday that Yasukuni would not be replaced.

"Whatever kind of memorial may be established, Yasukuni Shrine will exist, it will not disappear," Koizumi told reporters at his official residence. "I have to explain that, so there won't be any misunderstanding."

- REUTERS