S. Korea, Japan clear UNESCO hurdle, history row still unresolved

By Lee Chi-dong SEOUL, July 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and Japan seem to have cleared a smaller hurdle in their ties with a deal on Tokyo's UNESCO world heritage bid. The Northeast Asian neighbors, both key regional allies of the U.S., have been fraught with disputes over shared history, a legacy of Japan's 35-year harsh colonial rule of Korea from 1910. Seoul has urged Tokyo to accept full responsibility for sexual enslavement of Korean women for its troops during World War II and forcible conscription of Korean men as slave labor. The two sides are also at odds over Japan's claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo. Japan's conservative Shinzo Abe administration brought the forced labor issue to the international stage by applying to have related facilities be registered as world heritage. Nearly 60,000 Koreans were forcibly recruited to work at seven of the 23 sites, which were eventually added to the list Sunday at the 39th meeting of the World Heritage Committee in Bonn, Germany. Germany and 18 other members of the panel requested South Korea and Japan to settle their row first. The fruit of months of negotiations, Japan acknowledged during the annual session that many Koreans and others were "brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites." It added the Japanese government "also implemented its policy of requisition" at that time. South Korean officials held out expectations for a positive impact on Seoul-Tokyo ties this year, the 50th anniversary since the normalization of their diplomatic ties. "I am glad that the decision was made in a form to reflect our fair concern," South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told reporters. He noted the two sides resolved the matter through dialogue and said it is expected to help them promote their relations based on the "virtuous circle." Speaking on background, another senior South Korean government official said, "It's virtually unprecedented for Japan to make a mention (of the forced labor issue) like that on the global stage." But it's still too early to be optimistic of the relations between the two sides. The so-called "comfort women" issue is far more complex and politically significant. As many as 200,000 Korean women were coerced by Japan's imperialist military into sexual servitude. Abe has yet to offer his own apology formally for the wartime brutality and address the matter of reparations. South Korea and Japan have been in separate negotiations over the problem. Japan's attitude towards the issue is viewed as a deciding factor in its relations with South Korea's Park Geun-hye government. "We will keep a close watch on Prime Minister Abe's speech expected in August to mark the 70th anniversary since the end of World War II," a Foreign Ministry official said. lcd@yna.co.kr (END)