South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Sunday left the door open for talks with Japan in a speech marking his neighbor’s World War II surrender as several Japanese Cabinet members visited a war-linked shrine seen by many in Asia as a symbol of its past militarism.
In his last Liberation Day speech as president to mark the end of Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule over the peninsula, Moon said his government was ready to work with Japan on threats to the world such as the coronavirus pandemic and climate change. "We always keep the door open for conversation,” he said in a nationally televised address.
In Tokyo on the Sunday anniversary of Japan’s Aug. 15, 1945, surrender, at least three members of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s Cabinet — Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, education minister Koichi Hagiuda and World Expo minister Shinji Inoue — separately visited Yasukuni Shrine, which honors 14 wartime leaders convicted as Class A war criminals alongside other war dead. Economic revitalization minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi went Friday, for what the ministers said were personal visits to honor the war dead.
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