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Spokesman of DPRK FM on Implementation of DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration

KCNA

    Pyongyang, September 17 (KCNA) -- We strongly demand Japan settle, first of all, such serious human rights abuses as the Japanese imperialists' massacre of over one million Koreans, forcible drafting of more than 8.4 million Koreans and forcing at least 200,000 Korean women into sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army during their colonial rule over Korea, in line with the basic spirit of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration, said a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry in a statement issued on Tuesday one year after the publication of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration. The statement goes on:
    The DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration was adopted thanks to the magnanimity shown by the DPRK to establish new DPRK-Japan relations in a forward-looking manner regardless of all sentiments and reality as the Japanese prime minister visited the DPRK for the first time in history to officially apologize for Japan's crime-woven past and express his will to settle it.
    The bilateral relations finally greeted a turning phase of their improvement with the publication of the declaration as a momentum.
    But, regretfully, the review of the past one year indicates that the present bilateral relations are much worse than those before the declaration was published.
    Under the supervision of the government authorities steps are being taken in Japan to internationalize the nuclear issue and the issue of abduction and substantial sanctions are applied against the DPRK to strangle it economically. Rackets aimed to suppress the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, a dignified overseas compatriots organization of the DPRK, are becoming more undisguised. The Japanese authorities have taken one measure after another to increase their military capacity in a bid to launch overseas aggression under the pretext of the DPRK.
    The Japanese authorities are making much fuss about the issue of abduction of a few Japanese, although they have not probed the truth behind hideous human rights abuses Japan committed against the Koreans in the past and compensated for them.
    As far as the abduction issue is concerned, it is an abnormal isolated case that occurred against the backdrop of persistent hostile relations between the DPRK and Japan and the Koreans' bitter anti-Japanese sentiment caused by the successive Japanese authorities' refusal to redeem their past and their persistent pursuance of hostile policy toward the DPRK. This issue, however, has already been settled during the Japanese prime minister's Pyongyang visit.
    This notwithstanding, Japan is asserting that it will establish diplomatic relations with the DPRK only after this issue is solved. This reminds one of an assailant putting up "conditionality for reconciliation" before a victim.
    As already known, the basic spirit of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration is for both countries to settle unhappy past and, on this basis, solve pending issues and establish fruitful political, economic and cultural relations.
    The master key to the implementation of the declaration is for Japan to settle its past in view of the historic background against which the declaration was adopted and its basic spirit.
    Japan should opt for redeeming its past. It should probe the truth about incidents on a case-by-case basis and disclose them, apologize to the victims and their bereaved families separately and fully compensate for its crimes.
    This comes as an indispensable precondition for the normalization of bilateral relations.
    The future improvement of bilateral relations will depend entirely on whether this issue is solved or not.
    Invariable is the DPRK's will to implement the declaration to the last.
    What matters is how sincerely Japan would come out to implement it.
    If Japan does not come out with a sincere attitude in the basic spirit of the declaration it will also be difficult for the DPRK to implement the declaration.