By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
South Korea will ask France next month for a "permanent lease" of Korean royal texts looted during an invasion in the 19th century, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Sunday.
The move comes some 17 years after the then-leaders of Korea and France ― Kim Young-sam and Francois Mitterand ― agreed on the principles of two-way exchanges and the permanent lease of cultural properties.
A total of 297 books that dictate the protocols of royal ceremonies and rites of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) were taken by the French military from a royal library on Ganghwa Island off the country's west coast during an 1866 invasion.
Only one of them was returned to Korea, in 1993, on a permanent lease by then-French President Mitterand.
"The two governments had a series of talks on the lease of the books. France recently asked us to express our position in an official document," a ministry official said, adding the official request will likely be made next month.
"The government has decided the most realistic way to have the documents is on a permanent lease, which calls for renewal of the contract every four years to keep them in Korea."
Seoul and Paris have held negotiations since the return of the first royal text in 1993, but have failed to reach an agreement. South Korea recently proposed lending other South Korean texts or historic relics to France in exchange for the return of the looted properties.
In late 2009, a French court acknowledged the country's ownership of the 296 Korean royal books in a suit filed by a Seoul-based civic organization, Cultural Action.
Cultural Action has said it will appeal the ruling, while the Korean government said its effort to bring the texts back on a lease-basis will not affect any legal proceedings in the future.
Under a UNESCO convention signed in 1970, cultural properties obtained through illegal means are subject to restoration, but those obtained prior to the convention can lawfully be registered as national properties in the countries that currently own them, according to the foreign ministry.
jj@koreatimes.co.kr
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