S. Korean president mulls whether to join China's war anniversary

South Korean President Park Geun-hye delivers a New Year's speech during a televised news conference in Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 6, 2014. [Photo: Xinhua]

South Korean President Park Geun-hye is cautiously considering whether to attend the ceremony in China to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People' s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, her spokesman said Monday.

Presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook told reporters that all the matters were being deliberately considered to decide whether President Park will attend the celebratory event to be held in Beijing in early September.

China has scheduled a series of events for the war victory anniversary, culminating in a military parade on Sept. 3 in Beijing.

Min said that the presidential office was factoring in various things, including the ceremony to re-open the office of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, which was established in Shanghai in 1919 for the Korean independent activists against Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The official announcement on whether Park will join the event would be made late this week or early next week, a presidential official was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying.

Japan's Kyodo News reported that the United States called for President Park, through diplomatic channels, not to attend the celebratory event in China, but Min said it was "groundless."

Other media reports said that the U.S. side denied the Kyodo report, the spokesman added.