Koizumi Will Visit In Bid to Heal Rift

President Kim Dae-jung and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will hold a summit meeting on Oct. 15, providing an opportunity to improve relations that had frayed sorely this year.

"The two leaders will discuss Japan's views on history, forestalling terrorism, North Korea policy, cooperation for the 2002 World Cup and other cultural exchanges between the two nations," Oh Hong-keun, the Blue House spokesman, said Thursday.

The meeting comes at Mr. Koizumi's request, sources at the Blue House said.

Seoul and Tokyo have spoken scarcely a civil word in public this year. In the spring Korea was incensed when Japan adopted for school use new history textbooks that Korea says distort the history of the two countries. In August, Korea again objected to Mr. Koizumi's visit to a shrine honoring Japanese war dead.

Mr. Koizumi is reportedly prepared to express a "forward-looking stance" toward bilateral relations. It would encompass expressions of regret made along the lines of the 1995 apology by former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, and the 1998 expression of "deep regret" by former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.

Plans are under review to include in Mr. Koizumi's itinerary a visit to the Independence Memorial Hall in Cheonan, South Chungchong province, which honors South Korea's independence from Japanese colonial rule in 1945.

Mr. Kim is expected to express strong regret over Japan's view of history, its plan to dispatch its self-defense forces to aid the United States and its moves to amend its pacifist constitution.

The leaders, whose economies are both dependent on the U.S. economy, will also discuss economic cooperation. They will also take up cooperation during the World Cup, with heightened attention to preventing terrorism. The Korean and Japanese organizing committees agreed last month in Seoul to restrict air space above stadiums during games.

Mr. Koizumi's visit comes a year after former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori visited in October 2000, and nearly six months after he took office in April.

by Oh Young-hwan