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Seoul Calls Off Military Exercise
South Korea on Tuesday called off a scheduled joint naval exercise with Japan as part of its protest campaign against Japanese textbooks that it believes whitewashes Japan's wartime atrocities
The joint navy search-and-rescue drill, originally scheduled in June in East China Sea, will be postponed indefinitely pending resolution of the textbook dispute, said Yoon Il-young, a spokesman for Seoul's defense ministry.
The decision to call off this year's exercise came after Foreign Minister Han Seung-soo summoned Japan's ambassador and made an official demand for a revision of eight Japanese school textbooks that critics say distort or tone down Japan's invasion of South Korea and other Asian countries in the early part of the 20th century.
During a 30-minute meeting with the Japanese envoy, Terusuke Terada, Han delivered a document detailing Seoul's demands for a revision of 35 controversial passages in the eight textbooks.
``The textbook issue has not only inflicted a deep shock on the minds of our people but also damaged an agreement reached earlier between the two countries to clear up the past and forge a future-oriented relationship,'' Han said.
It is unclear how Japan would receive the South Korean demands. But Japanese government officials already have said there would be no change in their decision that approved the textbooks in early April.
The textbook issue is galling the Kim government which is struggling to shore up its flagging popularity in the midst of an economic slowdown.
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