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| Members of a liberal student group hold a rally in front of the presidential office in Yongsan District, Seoul, Sunday, denouncing the summit between President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held later in the day. Yonhap |
By Lee Hyo-jin
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to Korea was met by strong protests from local civic groups, Sunday, who demanded Tokyo offer a sincere apology over its wartime atrocities.
The plane carrying Kishida landed at Seoul Airport at around noon for a summit with President Yoon Suk Yeol later in the day, marking the first bilateral visit by a Japanese leader to Korea in 12 years.
On the same day, a coalition of anti-Japanese civic groups and students' groups held multiple rallies in front of the presidential office in Yongsan District, central Seoul, denouncing Yoon and Kishida for holding the summit without Japan's sincere regret over its colonization of Korea and resulting aggressions experienced by the Korean people.
The civic activists called on Kishida to offer a direct apology for Japan's wartime crimes including forced labor and sexual slavery committed during imperial Japan's 1910-45 colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
They also criticized the Yoon government's push for friendly relations with Tokyo while turning a blind eye to historical grievances.
In recent months, Korea and Japan have been making strides to thaw their yearslong frosty relations, after the Yoon administration announced a compensation plan for Korean victims of Japan's forced labor. Under the plan, the compensation will be paid primarily through Korean firms, relieving the guilty Japanese companies of their responsibility.
Such an arrangement has sparked a fierce backlash from liberal civic groups and victims who point out that the government has ignored the victims' demand for a sincere apology and direct payment from Japan.
Rallies condemning the Japanese government were also held in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Saturday, which involved environmental activists protesting against Japan's planned release of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima disaster into the sea.
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| Environmental activists hold a press conference denouncing the Japanese government for its planned release of Fukushima radioactive wastewater, in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Saturday. Yonhap |
Also, territorial disputes surrounding the islets of Dokdo, as they are known in Korea, remain a major source of diplomatic disagreement between the neighboring countries and have flared up again ahead of the summit.
Seo Kyung-duk, a professor from Sungshin Women's University who actively promotes Korean culture abroad, pointed out that a map on Japan's meteorological agency's website indicated Dokdo as its territory, thereby spreading wrong information to the Japanese public.
"I have immediately lodged a protest to the meteorological agency through an email," he wrote on his Facebook, Sunday. The professor stressed that Dokdo is Korea's sovereign territory from a number of standpoints while criticizing Japan for its repeated "false claims."
Dokdo is an uninhabited pair of rocky islets in the East Sea, over which Korea has had effective control since its liberation from Japanese colonial occupation in 1945, with its security personnel stationed there. However, Japan has persistently made territorial claims on the islets it calls Takeshima, resulting in ongoing diplomatic disputes between the two nations.
The territorial spat was renewed last week after Japan protested against a Korean lawmaker's visit to Dokdo. Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a protest to its Seoul counterpart on May 2, after Rep. Jeon Yong-gi of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) traveled to the islets along with several young party members earlier in the day.
Korea's foreign ministry dismissed the protest, calling it a "wrong claim." The ministry reiterated its stance that Dokdo is Korea's sovereign territory "historically, geographically and under international law."
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