Japan asks South Korea to apologize for kidnapping??!!

Japan has asked South Korea to apologize for the kidnapping of then opposition leader Kim Dae-jung in Tokyo in 1973, and take measures to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents, a report said Wednesday. Full article and hereand also here.

Wonder if South Korea will pull an Abe and again pretend that there is no evidence that the ROK government was involved. (Sorry if by "pull an Abe" anyone was mislead into believing I meant to suddenly resign.) Deniability of any responsibility could be established if, as one of the commentors suggested, Kim Dae-Jung had his status changed to "comfort man." (Were he a comfort man, then the ROK could claim that he was not kidnapped but voluntarily went to South Korea to be imprisoned and nearly executed. Or perhaps they could claim he kidnapped himself. Besides, was his prison cell under Chun Doo Hwan all that bad?)

As I recall, there was/is some suspicion that the Japanese government was involved in the kidnapping too. That, of course, would be impossible. The Japanese government would never do such a thing.

Correction: The rumors were that the yakuza, specifically the Korean descendants in the Japanese yakuza, were involved---not the Japanese government.