(KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued a statement on June 13 as regards the fact that the Japanese authorities are driving the DPRK-Japan relations to the worst phase in history by persisting in their moves to internationalize the "abduction issue" already resolved between the DPRK and Japan. This year alone, in April and May, they made a big fuss, deciding to beg countries having diplomatic ties with the DPRK for official cooperation in the settlement of the issue and sending Megumi Yokota's family to the United States and south Korea for "soliciting" help. As if this is not enough, they are trying to take the issue to the UN Human Rights Council and G-8 summit, says the spokesman, and goes on: In trying to "internationalize" the "abduction issue," which had been solved, by deliberately bringing it into bold relief, the Japanese authorities seek to isolate the DPRK by taking advantage of the U.S. hostile policy toward it and craftily evade its obligation to settle their past crimes by distorting the keynote of the DPRK-Japan relations as if it is the "abduction issue." The relations between the DPRK and Japan are, in essence, those between a victim and an assailant. Therefore, the latter ought to make due apology and compensation understandable to the victim if the bilateral relations are to be settled.
Japan has imposed upon the Korean people immeasurable human, material and mental pain in the past. Nevertheless, Japan has not yet made any honest apology to the Korean people with a humble bow. On the contrary it has neither admitted its criminal acts nor thought of compensating for them. In the light of the order for the settlement of those crimes and from the moral point of view, Japan should begin with apologizing and compensating for the most hideous crimes it committed against humanity in the last century.