The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday demanded Japan sincerely reflect on the crimes it committed on the Korean Peninsula and make thorough compensation.

Japan must stop the "stupid activities" on whitewashing its history of aggression, preaching nationalism and engaging in military build-up, a spokesman of the DPRK Foreign Ministry told Xinhua in an exclusive interview shortly before the 60th anniversary of the Korea Peninsula's liberation from Japan's colonial rule.

The spokesman severely condemned the crimes committed by Japanese invaders against Korean people during the 40-year-long colonial rule.

"Japan's enormous crimes on the Korean Peninsula were against humanity and aimed at wiping out the Korean people as a nation," he said.

Koreans were forced to drop their Korean names and use Japanese ones, he said.

In the four decades of Japanese colonial rule, more than 8.4 million young Koreans were forced to slavery labor or military service; more than 1 million civilians were killed; about 200,000 Korean women were used as sex slaves of the Japanese military, he said.

The spokesman also criticized Japanese top politicians' visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where 14 Class-A war criminals of World War II are honored, and the adoption of history textbooks that gloss over Japan's aggression.

He said Japan, with a right-leaning political trend, the rebirth of militarism and the growth of military power, has become a threat to the peace and stability in East Asia.

He made it clear that DPRK is strongly against Japan's bid to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
 
(Xinhua News Agency August 13, 2005)