Moon tells Abe history must not hamper co-operation

Perhaps Mr. Moon was telling Abe not to let the abductee issue take precedent in any negotitiations with North Korea. Whenever there was any kind of 3 way or 5 way talks to discuss nuclear disarmmement, and a deal was struck or some agreeement made, Japan would then bring up the abductees and it would scuttle the whole process.

Moon tells Abe history must not hamper co-operation

Haha I think he read the script backwards.. Korea has been living in 1942 for the last 20 years

Haha I think he read the script backwards.. Korea has been living in 1942 for the last 20 years

As opposed to Japan acting like the last 100 never occurred in the first place right?

When Japanese comment on some elderly Koreans speaking fluent Japanese, they are surprised when they get an earful!

The reasons for the Korean intransigence is in some part due to Japanese ignorance and lack of empathy.....

I wager Abe will pop into Yasukuni today on the back of this message.

Korea, stop playing the victim card! It's starting to make you look pathetic.

Japan, let's be honest and fair and not cover up things to make others angrier.

Korea playing the victim card? Well they were annexed by Japan their women were forced into being gang raped by Imperial Japanese Army members, men taken and inducted into the army or forced labour. And still the abducted Korean residents in Japan are treated as scum. So playing the victim might actually be appropriate.

MarkX: "Whenever there was any kind of 3 way or 5 way talks to discuss nuclear disarmmement, and a deal was struck or some agreeement made, Japan would then bring up the abductees and it would scuttle the whole process."

EXACTLY! I've been saying this for years while Japan does exactly that, and the typical wingers on the site just deflect and say Japan deserves to be at the table and the abductee issue is not bilateral, etc. Just yesterday a woman I was talking said she's worried Moon will bring up the "comfort women" issue again (to her credit she doesn't deny it), and that it will be "hard to negotiate history with him", to which I just said the South Korean people have made it clear that the NK issue takes precedent and that has to come first. Anything else, including the islands and "sex slaves" (my words) comes second. Point is it is an example of priorities from a Japanese perspective despite all the hysteria with trains stopping over missile launches, etc.

Dango Bong: "Haha I think he read the script backwards.. Korea has been living in 1942 for the last 20 years"

Always love how everyone should 'forget the past' when Japan was in the wrong, but how the world should attend the Hiroshima Peace ceremony every year and 'never forget'. And of course, never forget the abduction issue, or islands Russia or others "stole" at the same time as Japan committed atrocities, but then said people say, "What atrocities? It's all made up. FOrget about it already. Now excuse me while I visit Yasukuni to remember honor people who died more than 70 years ago!"

"Korea, stop playing the victim card! It's starting to make you look pathetic"

Sorry, but these days it's looking more and more like it's Japan that's trying to play the victim. Of Korea's alleged lies and distortions of history, that is. And of course, the supposed innate criminality of Zainichi Koreans. Pathetic? Yeah, I'd say so.

Cricky Today 08:51 am JST

Korea playing the victim card? Well they were annexed by Japan..

The 1910 annexation was both welcomed and resisted by Koreans. It wasn't an invasion.

their women were forced into being gang raped by Imperial Japanese Army members,

The only documented case was in Indonesia and didn't involve Korean women. That incident was policed by the IJA themselves who shut down the brothel and court martialed the responsible officer. The Comfort women were salaried employees of the IJA, and gang raping them would be quick way to end a military career.

men taken and inducted into the army or forced labour.

Korean men in the Imperial Japanese military were volunteers, an estimated 240,000. And they made use of the Comfort Women.  "Forced recruitment" in Korea didn't start until 1944 when the tide had turned against Japan and only accounted for 44,000.

Aight then Crikey, btw I'm still pissed at the Italians (Roman Empire) for sacking Gaul in 387 BC. Lets never forgive or forget or learn.

Lets just blame the current generation for the sins of their parents, and the maybe since the propaganda worked, we can all fight again. How about that man?

So Ossan, let me get this right as I have a few Japanese mates vehemently denying the comfort women issue as total fabrication and a plot to make Japan look bad and extort money. It becomes a very intense discussion and now I try to avoid it as they have totally made up their minds. They bring it up though as they believe I have been brainwashed by the liberal media. Party killers actually. So the fact that there may be no documents admitting forced sexual slavery means that its all made up? I really would love to get my head around why this issue has become such a thorn. Is it the numbers, the scale, the question of whether it ever actually happened or the issue of compensation that keeps it from being resolved? You seem like quite the historian so pray tell.

OssanAmerica

you can fly in the the face of global recorded history, good luck with that. Stay in Japan and you are right. Venture outside and you might find that the rest of the world has a more realistic view of the treatment of Koreans, in fact all non Japanese by The Imperial Japanese forces. I don't get it at all either the officers lost control or it was a policy either way not one country has fond memories of Japan's intervention.

Why the arguing people? Both countries need to heed this advice regardless of who said it.

@Crikey

"The rest of the world has a different view..."

No. I've been to five continents, and I can guarantee you that Arabs, Latinos, South East Asians, Eastern Asians, North and South Africans, and Eastern and Western Europeans do not think alike at all.

Maybe you should say "Westerners through Western education (history is written by the victors in war) have a different view.

Lets just blame the current generation for the sins of their parents, and the maybe since the propaganda worked, we can all fight again. How about that man?

They are blaming the current generation for denying or downplaying the sins of their parents, a small but important difference.

What? What? Burning the paperwork then claiming there is no proof, in the face of sufferers first hand. What next no Suprise attack on Pearl Harbour, Malasia, Singapore, Australia, India, Burma, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, China. Say sorry move on, the longer it's "debatable" the longer the unique and special Japanese way looses value.

As opposed to Japan acting like the last 100 never occurred in the first place right?

On the flip side, if most Japanese people kept hatred towards Americans for wiping out Hiroshima/Nagasaki over 70 years ago, would you be living here?

That’s a bit rich !

Remember how SK was kowtowing to the Chinese autocrats (no one forgot how they embarrassed themselves, in Beijing, at the farce of a celebration of the end of WWII) hoping to sell more of their musical soft porn they think is soft power or Galaxy smartphones that Chinese have already replaced with local rip-offs. They pissed off everyone.

But now that China wants nothing to do with you anymore and, you're looking for friends now ?

their countries must not let their difficult histories hamper co-operation in dealing with North Korea's nuclear program.

This is what Japan has been saying since 1965, when the two countries concluded the Korea Japan Basic Treaty. Let history be history.

But Koreans may have different interpretation, "Janan, you don't oppose us Koreans or we will start history barking and hamper co-operation."

Korea playing the victim card? Well they were annexed by Japan..

OK Korea enjoy being a victim but can you please limit your complaints to AT LEAST THE LAST THREE DECADES please! Stop living in the past

Why the arguing people? Both countries need to heed this advice regardless of who said it.

Because Korea says it but does not live it, they are petulant children living in 1942 forever the poor victims wanting to be compensated.

Dango bong Today 07:38 am JST .. Korea has been living in 1942 for the last 20 years

You don't say?

May 10 11:59 am JST I just hope SK stops living in 1942 with wartime complaints about decades old complaints. At least limit your complaining to things that happened 2000 or later please.

Oh, you do say.

May 10 07:06 am JST hopefully Korea can live in 2017 and not 1942 with the new leader

Ok, ok - jeez, I heard you the first time!

they are petulant children living in 1942 forever the poor victims wanting to be compensated.

1942, eh?

okay and the country goes over to Japan and...

MarkX May 12 07:09 am JST

"Perhaps Mr. Moon was telling Abe not to let the abductee issue take precedent in any negotitiations with North Korea. Whenever there was any kind of 3 way or 5 way talks to discuss nuclear disarmmement, and a deal was struck or some agreeement made, Japan would then bring up the abductees and it would scuttle the whole process."

South Korea has some 400 citizens who are abductees of the North Korea regime. It is not solely a Japanese issue.

Cricky May 12 09:47 am JST

"OssanAmerica

you can fly in the the face of global recorded history, good luck with that. Stay in Japan and you are right. Venture outside and you might find that the rest of the world has a more realistic view of the treatment of Koreans, in fact all non Japanese by The Imperial Japanese forces. I don't get it at all either the officers lost control or it was a policy either way not one country has fond memories of Japan's intervention"

Sorry Cricky, but global recorded history happens to actually support the view that 200,000 women were NOT kidnapped, that they were paid prostitutes in a military brothel system. that most either answered recruitment ads or were deceived by Korean agents working for the IJA. This recorded history includes US military interrogations of captured comfort women as well as Korean POWS during WWII. No resolution to any dispute will ever be found if one side continues to repeat their false revisionist "history" and that is South Korea under the influence of the Chong Dae Hyup. Third parties simply parroting this propaganda doesn't help. Read the works of Prof Sarah Soh and Prof Ang Byong Jik and Prof Park Yuha, all South Korean scholars: http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.com/

global recorded history happens to actually support the view that 200,000 women were NOT kidnapped, that they were paid prostitutes in a military brothel system. that most either answered recruitment ads or were deceived by Korean agents working for the IJA.

You link us to Prof Park Yuha. This would be same person who was sued by several comfort women after the publication of her take on the situation?