SEOUL, June 20: Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean leader Roh Moo-Hyun failed to agree on how to restore bilateral ties at a summit on Monday that focused on historic disputes. Mr Roh said that one hour and 50 minutes of the two-hour summit had been devoted to historic issues between the two countries that have surfaced in recent months.

“There was an open, frank and sincere dialogue about each other’s perception and opinions on this issue,” he said after the summit.

“But there have been no agreement despite efforts to understand each other and mutual understanding in some parts.”

There was no reference to friendly relations in Mr Koizumi’s characterization of the talks.

“We frankly exchanged our views on the past, the present and the future of our bilateral relations,” he said.

Seoul has been angered by Japan’s revived claim this year to a group of disputed islets between the two countries.

Mr Koizumi’s annual visits to a controversial Tokyo war shrine as well as Japan’s recent approval of a school history textbook accused of whitewashing the country’s imperial past have deepened the animosity.

Mr Roh said that Mr Koizumi had said he would consider building an alternative war shrine to the Yasukuni shrine which honours 14 top war criminals among 2.5 million war dead.

However, Mr Koizumi told Japanese journalists the question had not been raised.

“About a new war memorial, the subject itself did not come up,” he said.

Later, the prime minister told reporters that even if a new war memorial was created, it would not replace the Yasukuni shrine, which is seen by China and South Korea as a symbol of Japanese militarism.

“It would be different from the Yasukuni shrine. Some people wrongly think the new memorial would replace the Yasukuni. That simply won’t happen,” he said.

Mr Koizumi said Mr Roh had not directly asked him to end the visits to the controversial shrine. “But listening to the nuances and lines of his wording, I understood he wanted it to stop,” he said.

The Japanese leader told Mr Roh that he denied charges that he visited the Shinto shrine to glorify Japan’s militaristic past.

“I visit to mourn the war dead who were dragged into war against their own will,” he told Japanese journalists after the summit. “I frankly told him that I visit the shrine with my strong determination not to wage war again.”

Mr Koizumi said the two leaders had agreed to set up a joint study group to examine bilateral history in order to “deepen our mutual understanding”.

As the summit progressed protesters burned Japanese flags and said Mr Koizumi should be banned from South Korean soil and his government should resign. No incidents were reported in the demonstrations involving up to 100 people in at least two locations.

“We denounce Prime Minister Koizumi for spearheading Japan’s revival of militarism that is driving Asia again into a conflict,” protesters said in a statement. “We urge the Koizumi cabinet to resign immediately.”

Mr Koizumi and Mr Roh have met six times since the South Korean president took office in early 2003. But the casual atmosphere of recent shirt-sleeve summits has long gone, and they exchanged greetings in suits and ties.

Tension between Seoul and Tokyo has not affected close commercial ties so far, according to officials here. However, popular anti-Japanese sentiment is rising.

Japan colonized Korea from 1910-1945 and has apologized in the past for its harsh rule of the peninsula. Bilateral ties were established in 1965, when South Korea received aid and financial compensation for the colonial period.

This year the two nations had agreed to mark four decades of bilateral relations with a special year of friendship.

However Japan’s claim to the islets of Dokdo, known as Takeshima in Japan, suggests to Koreans that Tokyo is unrepentant about its militaristic past.

Facing an outpouring of hostility in China as well as South Korea, Mr Koizumi made a public apology in April for Japan’s past aggression towards its Asian neighbours.

The South Korea government called for action, rather than words from Tokyo. —AFP