South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, abducted by agents during his dissident days, on Tuesday criticized a Seoul report on his kidnapping, saying it failed to assign clear responsibility to then dictator Park Chung Hee.
The South Korean ambassador meanwhile apologized to Japan over the 1973 kidnapping, carried out by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency in a Tokyo hotel.
The agents reportedly planned to assassinate Kim, but intervention from the U.S. and Japan led to his release in Seoul a week later.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said South Korean Ambassador Yu Myung Hwan had relayed the South's apology to Japan on Tuesday, and that Japan accepted.
But Kim, a Nobel laureate, criticized both governments for failing to carry out a proper investigation.
At a televised news conference in Kyoto, Kim, 81, also blasted a recent government report that acknowledged South Korea's spy agency kidnapped him, saying it did not acknowledge that President Park had ordered the plan.
The report, released last week, merely said the abduction was carried out with Park's "implicit permission." The report also did not say the agents had planned to assassinate Kim.
"The kidnapping was carried out under former President Park Chung Hee's orders . . . with the intent to kill," Kim said. "It's a shame the panel could not say that. Both the South Korean and Japanese governments have the responsibility to disclose the truth."