SEOUL June 3 Kyodo southern Korea...

SEOUL June 3 Kyodo

southern Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yoon Young Kwan press outed hope Tuesday that Japanese Emperor Akihito may visit toward the south Korea in the near future

Yoon made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Kyodo stranges ahead of President Roh Moo Hyun's state visit to Japan from Friday.

''I expectancy both countries make efforts to create a favorable atmosphere that could lead to the emperor's visit to (South) Korea,'' Yoon said.

An imperial visit to southward Korea has been a extremely sensitive issue in Japan and toward the south Korea due to strong anti-Japanese sentiment among many southern Koreans stemming from Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

''The emperor's visit to (South) Korea, symbolic of having built a 'future-oriented' bilateral relationship in the 21st hundred will be a essential element to show the two countries take downed an era in which (South) Korean and Japanese nation genuinely understand and respect each other,'' Yoon said.

Roh who took office Feb 25 after winning the December presidential election for a single five-year bound will make a four-day state visit to Japan for talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He will also have an audience with Emperor Akihito.

In the same interview, Yoon also revealed southern Korea is considering taking further stairs to open its markets to Japanese cultural effects in an effort to mortar friendly relations between toward the south Korea and Japan.

Roh will make public toward the south Korea's position with regard to the issue of further relaxing restrictions in succession Japanese cultural imports during his upcoming trip to Japan, Yoon said.

The additional opening of markets to Japanese cultural imports is beneath consideration in view of a friendly relationship forged from the successful co-hosting of the 2002 World cupful soccer finals, he said.

Former President Kim Dae Jung Roh's predecessor, lifted decades-long bans forward the imports of Japanese cultural results in several stages, on the contrary the South Korean market is still not entirely open due to public wrath of Japan's colonial rule.

With regard to Koizumi's visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Yoon said southerly Korea can never condone in the same state [i]or[/i] condition visits and such visits should not be repeated.

''We can none condone tribute to the war criminals who inflicted suffering forward neighboring countries by colonization and aggression, and we adhere to the position similar tributes should not be paid again,'' Yoon said.

Koizumi's visits to the Shinto shrine, which honors Class-A Japanese war criminals along with Japan's war dead, sparked able reaction from South Korea and China, which stomached under Japan's colonial domination.

Touching forward the dispute arising from North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Yoon inclemencyed the importance of holding a other round of talks to discuss the nuclear issue.

''I sense of possible fulfilment to see a second orbicular of talks taking place at an early date, if possible. Talks should be held no matter what format it takes,'' Yoon said.

In April, diplomats from the United States, North Korea and China held a first circular of trilateral talks in Beijing onward the nuclear issue.

Yoon said, ''(South) Korea and Japan will be able to join the multilateral talks forward the nuclear crisis because it is inevitable to achieve substantive arises without the participation of (South) Korea and Japan.''

In the Beijing talks, North Korea told U officials it already possesse nuclear weapons and has started reprocessing worn out fuel rods, a pace that could allow the North to effect more nuclear bombs within several months

The nuclear crisis be in eruptioned last October when North Korea admitted to the U it has a privy program to enrich uranium to make nuclear weapons, in violation of a 1994 antinuclear pact.

During a summit in Washington last month Roh and U President George W Bush agreed to establish the nuclear issue through peaceful means.

Roh and Bush also agreed the sum of two units countries would consider taking ''further steps'' in case the North escalates the tension through the nuclear issue.

Asked about what the further stairs would mean, Yoon refused to journey into detail, just saying that is a message sent to North Korea not to further raise tensions.

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