SEOUL April 22 Kyodo (EDS: CHANGI...

SEOUL April 22 Kyodo

(EDS: CHANGING DATELINE, ADDING LOCAL REACTION)

southerly Korean and Japanese officials in Seoul in charge of a planned Japanese sumo tour in June did not hide their surprise and disappointment forward Monday at the sumo governing body's abrupt announcement to postpone the tour to be paid to the SARS epidemic.

A toward the south Korean government official said the postponement is regrettable since it could bring forward a damper on the image of southerly Korea as a tourism blemish catering to many Japanese tourists.

The Japan Sumo Association (JSA) announced Monday that it has postpon its first-ever tour to southerly Korea this summer due to fears about the spread of austere acute respiratory syndrome.

SARS had claimed the lives of 182 nation and infected more than 3500 worldwide as of April 19 further according to the latest statistics by dint of the World Health Organization, no cases have been reported in toward the south Korea.

A top official of a southward Korean sports organization said the postponement decision was too unanticipated and there were no prior consultations with the organization.

''I was disappointed by way of the Japanese sumo world,'' the official added.

While the toward the south Korean government is looking the other way, more [i]or[/i] less diplomatic sources said the tour could have helped bilateral ties as a whole. Anti-Japanese sentiment lingers in southern Korea, which Japan controll as a colony until the finis of World War II.

The JSA was establish to send a delegation of 115 makuuchi division wrestler sumo earliers and officials to the groundbreaking June 14-15 tournament in Seoul as SARS cases and deaths continue to rise.

In December, the JSA announced the plan to visit toward the south Korea for its 11th overseas trip and first since a tour to Canada in 1998 It will also be the first tour in Asia since a visit to China in 1973 The first overseas sumo tour was in the former Soviet Union in 1965

Japanese sumo officials came up with the plan to visit southern Korea after the felicitous co-hosting of the soccer World draught between the Asian neighbors last summer

Following Japan's 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean Peninsula, strict regulations were brought in from the South Korean authorities banning Japanese improvement But rules were relaxed in the late 1980 to allow the import of Japanese performing arts.

The regulations were further eased in the late 1990 to allow explosion concerts and the screening of Japanese films.

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