Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung on Wednesday strongly condemned Japan’s approval of controversial school history textbooks, saying that South Korea was betrayed by Tokyo because the approval came after Seoul’s efforts to mend frayed ties.
Lee made the remarks a day after Tokyo announced the approval of new textbooks for elementary school students that appeared to water down its atrocities against Koreans during its 1910-45 colonization of the Korean Peninsula and intensify its sovereignty claim over South Korea’s easternmost Dokdo islets.
The approval came after President Yoon Suk Yeol held a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on March 16. The summit took place after South Korea decided to compensate Korean victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor on its own, without asking Japan for contributions.
The compensation plan has triggered a strong backlash at home because Japanese companies are excluded from making payments to the victims.
“I strongly condemn Japan’s provocation,” the Democratic Party (DP) chairman said, describing Tokyo’s approval of textbooks as “provocation.”
Lee criticized the Yoon administration for giving concessions to Japan but failing to gain anything through the compensation plan.
DP floor leader Park Hong-keun said the main opposition party will submit a request to open a parliamentary investigation into the Yoon-Kishida summit later in the day.
He also urged Yoon to make a direct complaint to Kishida demanding the withdrawal of the textbooks.
Source: Yonhap News Agency