S. Korea`s Lee to forgo Japan visit due to North`s shelling+

TOKYO, Dec. 3 Kyodo -
South Korean President Lee Myung Bak will forgo his visit to Japan planned for
mid-December for talks with Prime Minister Naoto Kan due to Pyongyang's deadly
shelling of a South Korean island late last month, Foreign Minister Seiji
Maehara said Friday.
Maehara told a press conference that Seoul has told Tokyo that it is difficult
to realize Lee's trip to Japan after the Nov. 23 attack on Yeonpyeong Island,
which left two South Korean marines and two civilians dead.
The two countries had been planning to organize summit talks in mid-December in
Kyoto as part of frequent reciprocal visits called ''shuttle diplomacy,''
according to Japanese government sources.
Maehara said Seoul has told Tokyo that the country believes the shuttle
diplomacy is ''very important'' and wants to realize Lee's Japan visit soon.
The postponement of Lee's trip came as the Japanese parliament failed to
approve a pact between Japan and South Korea on Tokyo's transfer of historic
Korean artifacts during its extraordinary session through Friday.
Kan and Lee endorsed the accord to hand over to South Korea 1,205 volumes of
Korean archives that were brought to Japan during its 1910-1945 colonial rule
of the peninsula, when they last met Nov. 14 in Yokohama.
On Aug. 10, the Japanese premier promised to repatriate the cultural items
ahead of the Aug. 29 centenary of Japan's annexation of the peninsula.
The pact, which some opposition parties resisted, will be carried over to the
150-day ordinary Diet session due to begin in January.
The treaty will come into effect after parliaments of the two countries ratify
it. Following the pact's entry into force, the archives will be transferred to
South Korea within six months.
==Kyodo