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Textbooks Can't Be Tolerated: S.Korean PresidentJapan's Refusal to Revise
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung Tuesday said South Korea will never tolerate Japanese distortions of history in middle school textbooks.
Japan's refusal can never be tolerated. South Korea should calmly devise ways to achieve the desired revision, South Korean Presidential Spokesman Park Joon-young quoted Kim as saying at a cabinet meeting Tuesday morning.
"I cannot stop feeling shocked as Japan to teach its people twisted history does not help our bilateral relations at all. Japan has the obligation to tell its people the truth, and we have the right to demand Japan does so. We will demand revisions of the distorted textbooks to the end," Kim said at the meeting.
Monday morning, Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Terusuke Terada told South Korean Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Han Seung-soo that after a two-month review of the controversial textbooks, Japan would revise only two of the 35 passages demanded by Seoul in early May.
The controversial textbooks approved by the Japanese Education Ministry in April will be put into use for all Japanese public and private middle schools in 2002.
The two passages that Japan agreed to revise are pertaining to ancient history of the Korean Peninsula.
The textbooks still fail to mention the thousands of Korean women forced to serve as conform women, or sex slaves, for Japanese troops and they describe Japan's military invasion as " liberating" Asia from the West.
In a statement, the South Korean Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade said Seoul will take all necessary measures against the Japanese distortions of history in their middle school textbooks.
The Japanese government has repeatedly stated once textbooks are approved by the Education Ministry, only indisputable factual errors will be corrected. It called South Korea's demands for revision of 35 passages as "erroneous".
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