France agreed Monday to return to Seoul a set of 297 stolen Korean royal books, one of which is shown above, by May 31. /Yonhap

By Lee Hyo-won

France agreed Monday to return by May a set of ancient Korean royal documents it took by force in the late 19th century.

Park Heung-shin, Seoul’s ambassador to Paris, and Paul Jean-Ortiz, a French foreign ministry director handling Asian affairs, signed the agreement in France, to transfer 297 volumes of the “Oegyujanggak” from the National Library of France to the National Museum of Korea by May 31.

The deal follows French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s announcement to return the books on a permanent lease basis when he held talks with President Lee Myung-bak during the Group of 20 major economies in Seoul last November.

The contract is to be renewed every five years.

The formal agreement ends a 20-year dispute over the thorny issue. The two parties have “concluded negotiations smoothly,” foreign ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun said Monday ahead of the formal signing later that day.

The Korean museum plans to send experts to Paris later this month to discuss technical details, such as when and how the books will be transported. The books are expected to arrive here by air over two to three shipments. The first batch could reach Seoul as early as late March, sources say.

Korea hopes to put the books on public display in July.

Meanwhile France plans to digitally scan the documents before handing them over, and Seoul has agreed to put some of the returned books on public exhibition in Paris as part of 2015-16 exchange programs celebrating the 130th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

During the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910), a mutual defense treaty was concluded with France. The 1886 agreement is considered the start of relations between the two countries.

“As the agreement sets the deadline for the transfer, the Oegyujanggak will be returned to Korea, 145 years after they were taken to France and 20 years after our side raised this issue with the French,” the ministry said in a statement.

The books were taken by French troops in 1866 when they attacked Ganghwa Island, where a branch of the royal library was located, in retaliation for Korea’s execution of French Catholic missionaries.

The books recorded and illustrated all of the rituals, formalities and daily routine of the royal court during the Joseon Kingdom.

In 1993, one of the books came back to Korea on a permanent lease basis from then French President Francois Mitterrand but hundreds of other volumes remained in the French National Library. A Seoul-based civic group filed a lawsuit in France in 2008 against the library, demanding the stolen books be returned. A Paris court rejected the demand in December 2009, saying the Korean books were the national property of France.