Japan Retracts Claims on Occupation of Ancient Korean Kingdoms

By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter

Japanese historians have agreed to scrap a theory regarding their country's occupation of ancient Korean kingdoms, a joint research committee announced Tuesday.

The consensus was reached during an examination of historical records conducted by the Seoul-Tokyo Committee.

But the two sides failed to reach a compromise on some sensitive issues, such as Japan's forced annexation of Korea and the mobilization of forced laborers and "comfort women," sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II.

Japan had long asserted that the Gaya Confederacy was a colony or tributary of Wa of northern Kyushu in Japan. Gaya was a confederacy of territorial polities in the Nakdong River basin of southern Korea.

In World War II, the Japanese used this supposed historic link between Kyushu and Gaya as justification for the annexation of Korea. The theory is also included in some conservative Japanese school textbooks.

The two also agreed that Japan's rice farming and metallurgy were introduced from Korea.

Historians believe that more than one million Koreans were forced to work for Japan during World War II.

They include tens of thousands of young Korean women forced into sexual enslavement at frontline Japanese military brothels.

South Korea has asked Japan to take legal responsibility for the Korean "comfort women," but Tokyo argues a 1964 treaty covered all official indemnities.

Japan normalized relations with South Korea in 1965 after signing a treaty under which it paid $800 million in grants and soft loans.

Tokyo currently maintains that all pending compensation between the two governments was settled under the treaty.

gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr

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