President Lee Myung-bak said Monday Korea and Japan should move their relations forward "with the courage and wisdom to look squarely at history" as their ties suffered a serious setback from sovereignty and history spats.
The remark came in an address before an annual friendship meeting of the two countries. Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso attended the Korea-Japan Cooperation Committee session in Seoul in his capacity as acting Japanese-side chairman of the civilian forum.
Aso and other committee leaders are scheduled to pay a visit to Lee later Monday, presidential aides said. The planned meeting is a focus of attention amid speculation that Aso might be bringing a message from Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
Aso is also close to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinjo Abe, who has come back to the helm of Japan's opposition Liberal Democratic Party, a post that would make him Japan's new leader if his party wins the general elections.
"We should further solidify the development foundation for a mature partnership between the two countries with the courage and wisdom to look squarely at history and sincere action backing it up," Lee said in the address read by Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan.
The cooperation forum came as relations between Seoul and Tokyo have sunken to one of the lowest-ever ebbs after Lee's unprecedented Aug. 10 visit to the country's easternmost islets of Dokdo, which Japan has claimed as its territory.
In congratulatory remarks read by Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Masatoshi Muto for the Monday meeting, the Japanese prime minister urged the two nations to take a "cool-headed approach" over bilateral relations.
"From a broad perspective and based on the idea of taking a cool-headed approach, Japan and Korea must make efforts to build a stable relationship," Noda said in the remarks.
Given security issues in Northeast Asia, including North Korea, Noda said that South Korea, Japan and the United States should strengthen both bilateral and trilateral cooperation to secure peace and stability in the region.
Describing South Korea as a "good competitor" with Japan economically, Noda said Tokyo wants to further bolster economic ties with Seoul in regional and global economic fronts.
Japan has long laid claims to Dokdo, which lies closer to South Korea in the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, in the country's school textbooks, government reports and other ways, stoking enmity in South Korea against its former colonial ruler.
South Koreans see these claims as amounting to denying Korea's rights because the country regained independence from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule and reclaimed sovereignty over its territory, which includes Dokdo and many other islands around the Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap)