By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter


PUSAN _ President Roh Moo-hyun made a complaint to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi Friday over the latter’s repeated visits to a war shrine, which stirred a diplomatic row with Asian countries, including China and South Korea.

In a half-hour meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum here, Roh once again took issue with Tokyo’s moves to gloss over its wartime atrocities.

``We don’t demand an apology by the Japanese government any more. We don’t demand government-to-government compensation either,’’ he was quoted as telling Koizumi. ``But we can’t tolerate Japan’s positions on the Yasukuni Shrine, the Dokdo islets and on history textbooks at all.’’

The Japanese premier, however, only repeated his earlier position that his visits to the shrine are not aimed at paying homage to the war criminals but to repent for the past and reaffirm that Japan should not stage a war ever again.

Most Koreans are concerned about the recent provocative moves, particularly by right-wing leaders who often make ``improper’’ remarks on the shared history and even territorial sovereignty, a reminder of imperial Japan for such neighbors as China and Korea.

Seoul and Tokyo greeted the year 2005 with a variety of goodwill events to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties.

But bilateral relations in what they designate as the ``Friendship Year’’ went from bad to worse at the very outset due to the distortions in Japanese history textbooks and Japan’s territorial claim on Dokdo, South Korea’s easternmost islets.

The final straw was Koizumi’s visit last month to the shrine, which honors Japan’s 2.5 million war dead including 14 Class-A war criminals. Roh had tentatively made up his mind not to hold summit talks with Koizumi until the problem is properly solved.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr