- Title: South Korean Prime Minister urges Japan to face history
- Date: 1st March 2017
- Summary: 91-YEAR-OLD FORMER COMFORT WOMAN, KIM BOK-DONG, WALKING
- Embargoed: 15th March 2017 05:44
- Keywords: south korea independence movement day japan colonisation comfort women rally
- Location: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
- City: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
- Country: South Korea
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA003664NSJP
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: South Korean Prime Minister and acting President, Hwang Kyo-ahn, on Wednesday (March 1) urged Japan to face history during an official ceremony to mark the country's Independence Movement Day.
March 1st commemorates the 98th year of the declaration of the nation's independence from Japanese colonisation on March 1, 1919.
"The Japanese Government should squarely face history and have sincerity and consistency in educating future generations and reflecting on its past wrongdoings," Hwang said.
Hwang also denounced North Korea's provocative activities including nuclear programme.
"We will strive to make North Korea realise the uselessness of its nuclear weapons by further strengthening deterrence and the defence capabilities of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, including the deployment of THAAD," Hwang added.
South Korea's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday (February 28) that it formally signed a land-swap deal with Lotte Group that would allow the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in the country.
South Korea has said it and the United States aim to make the system, which the two countries decided last year to deploy in response to the North Korean missile threat, operational by the end of the year.
Elsewhere in the capital, four of South Korea's former comfort women and hundreds of activists held a rally demanding the Japanese government to apologise for the sexual slavery of South Korean women by the Japanese army during World War II.
"We cannot receive any money until the Japanese government regrets and apologises sincerely," said former comfort woman, Kim Bok-dong during the rally.
In 2015, an agreement was reached by Japan and South Korea in which Japan offered an apology and compensation to the surviving women.
Both China and Korea suffered under Japanese rule, with parts of China occupied in the 1930s and Korea colonised from 1910 to 1945. Japanese leaders have apologised in the past but many in China and South Korea doubt the sincerity of the apologies, partly because of contradictory remarks by politicians. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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