1. Despite repeated warnings from the Government of the Republic of Korea, the Japanese government repeated a historically retrogressive move on April 7 by passing through its Cabinet Diplomatic Bluebook 2015 containing wrongful claims on Dokdo and the issue of sexual slavery victims drafted by Japan’s Imperial Army during World War II. The move came after its provocative step on April 6 of approving middle school textbooks that describe historical facts in a way that they are distorted, understated and/or omitted.

2. For all such groundless claims by the Japanese government, it is impossible to erase or alter the historical truths that Dokdo, an integral part of the territory of the Republic of Korea, was first sacrificed in the course of the forcible colonization of the Korean Peninsula by imperial Japan; and that the victims of Japan’s military sexual slavery suffered untold pain and wounds after being forcibly recruited.

3. The Japanese government should recall and bear in mind the remarks by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany that her country “will always have the responsibility of ensuring the knowledge about these atrocities is passed on, and of keeping the memories alive”; and ask itself why post-war Germany is respected by the international community. 


               Spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Public Relation of MOFA

* unofficial translation