Defense chief shelves plan to visit Japan, cautious about military pact

Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said Thursday he has postponed a plan to visit Japan this month and will take a cautious approach toward signing a military pact with Tokyo.

Korea and Japan have been in final stages of talks to reach two agreements on sharing military intelligence and logistics, in what would be the first such pacts since Japan's colonial rule over Korea ended in 1945. Seoul's defense ministry said on May 8 that Kim planned to visit Japan this month.

"I had planned to sign a General Security of Military Information Agreement when I visit Japan in May, but decided not to visit in May due to concerns about handling the issue with more haste than caution," Kim told Rep. Park Ji-won, floor leader of the main opposition Democratic United Party, during a meeting earlier in the day.

Kim's statements were quoted by Park's spokesperson, Lee Eon-joo.

"As public attention is high on a military pact with Japan, I will not handle the matter with more haste than caution but handle it throughout discussions at the National Assembly," Kim was quoted as telling Park.

Officials at the defense ministry were not immediately available for comment.

During the meeting, Park urged Kim to be cautious about signing any military pact with Japan as Tokyo has not fully repented of wartime atrocities it committed during its colonial rule, the spokesperson said.

Many South Koreans harbor deep resentment toward Japan over their actions during World War II, when the Korean Peninsula was a Japanese colony.

Seoul has been calling for official bilateral negotiations to resolve a long-running grievance over Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. Referred to as "comfort women," many of the women have died in recent years and the others are very old.

Despite repeated demands from Seoul, Japan has repeated its previous position that all issues regarding its colonial rule were settled in a 1965 compensation package that the two countries reached while normalizing diplomatic relations. (Yonhap)