SOUTH KOREA: Foreign ministry denounces Japanese lawmakers visit to controversial shrine in Japan, while activists hold anti-Japan rally in front of the residence of Japanese ambassador

Record ID: 215606

  • Title: SOUTH KOREA: Foreign ministry denounces Japanese lawmakers visit to controversial shrine in Japan, while activists hold anti-Japan rally in front of the residence of Japanese ambassador
  • Date: 23rd April 2013
  • Summary: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (APRIL 23, 2013) (REUTERS) SOUTH KOREA'S FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN CHO TAI-YOUNG WALKING INTO NEWS BRIEFING ROOM NEWS BRIEFING IN PROGRESS JOURNALISTS CHO AND JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (Korean) SOUTH KOREA'S FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN CHO TAI-YOUNG SAYING: "Yasukuni Shrine is the place where war criminals are enshrined and it beautifies a war. They shoul
  • Embargoed: 8th May 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Korea, Republic of
  • Country: South Korea
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA965FP4D685O0GS3L2B1KSENFC
  • Story Text: South Korea's foreign ministry on Tuesday (April 23) urged Japan to reflect upon the impression it was giving, after a group of Japanese lawmakers visited a shrine seen by Asian neighbours as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

    "Yasukuni Shrine is the place where war criminals are enshrined and it beautifies a war. They should have spent some time to reflect and should think about what impression it gives to people in the related countries and what people think about it," said South Korea's foreign ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young during a regular news briefing.
    At least 168 lawmakers visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which honours 14 leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal along with Japan's war dead. The mass pilgrimage came after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made an offering and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and two other ministers visited Yasukuni over the weekend.
    Elsewhere in capital, South Korean activists held an anti-Japan rally in front of a residence of Japanese ambassador to Seoul.
    The small group of activists slashed a placard bearing a picture of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe alongside Adolf Hitler and chanted slogans against Japan.

    "Paying tribute at the Yasukuni Shrine means that (Japan) denies their war crimes. It must be stopped immediately as it denies the evil doings they had done to victims in East Asian countries," said an anti-Japan rally protest leader Oh Cheon-do.
    South Korea's foreign minister cancelled a trip to Japan after Abe's shrine offering.
    Abe, an outspoken nationalist, made a ritual offering of a pine tree to the shrine. He did not go there but two Japanese ministers and a deputy chief cabinet secretary did visit it on the weekend.
    Homage paid by leading Japanese politicians at the Tokyo shrine typically angers Japan's neighbours, who contest that it glorifies wartime atrocities.
    Meanwhile, South Korea's Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se met delegates from the Japan-Korea Business Corporation Committee led by the chairman Mikio Sasaki.
    They discussed industrial cooperation on non-governmental interchange, South Korea's foreign ministry said.
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