South Korea should place more emphasis on whether Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intends to apologize over Japan's wartime atrocities, rather than the "nuance" of the words for his upcoming speech, a former top U.S. official said Tuesday.
South Korea is closely watching whether Abe will sincerely apologize for Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean and other Asian women during his expected speech at a joint session of the U.S. Congress slated for Wednesday.
James Steinberg, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state, said that it is important for both Seoul and Tokyo to understand concerns about the past history.
"I am not troubled by the fact that individuals find their own way of expressing that. But what's important is that they find ways to express it and they find ways to indicate that they understand what the concerns of others are," Steinberg told a press conference in Seoul.
Steinberg was in Seoul to attend a two-day forum hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies under the theme of "Is the U.S. back?"
Abe began his weeklong trip to the U.S. this week. His itinerary includes a speech at a joint session of Congress, the first of its kind for a Japanese prime minister.
During his speech at Harvard University in Boston on Monday, Abe did not provide an apology for Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean and other Asian women. He used the phrase "human trafficking" in describing the sex slaves without specifying the perpetrator.
In Japanese, the phrase "human trafficking" does not have a meaning of coercion, indicating that Abe is sticking to his previous vague statement on the issue that has frayed Tokyo's relations with Seoul.
Steinberg said Seoul should place more emphasis on whether Abe is willing to come to terms with Japan's wartime wrongdoing rather than every word that Abe used or will use for his congressional speech or a new statement due in August.
"We should focus less on trying to parse the nuance of language, but (we should) focus more on questions about whether there is a kind of reconciliation in coming to terms with concerns about the past that allow us to move forward," Steinberg said.
He said that Washington's role is to "encourage" Seoul and Tokyo to deal with the history issue, not to put pressure on both sides to resolve it.
"We can have a suggestion ... but I think it would be counterproductive for the U.S. to try to (put) pressure on Japan or pressure on South Korea or pressure on any of our friends," he added.
Steinberg said Seoul has "sincere" concerns about the shared history and a "genuine" motive to resolve the issue but also cautioned that anyone should not potentially "misuse" the history issue to achieve other objectives.
"What's important is for each side to really understand challenges that the other faces and try to find ways to meet their own needs," he said. "At the same time, they (need to) help the other deal with their own context." (Yonhap)
