Rodong Sinmun Thursday says this in a signed article.

Recalling that some days ago Japanese Prime Minister Aso in his "policy speech for 2009" said he would strive for the normalization of the ties between Japan and the DPRK while referring to someone's "abduction, nuclear and missile issues," the article observes that his remarks cannot convince anyone as they are falsifying truth about the issue of improving the bilateral relations and misleading the public opinion on it.

Citing facts to prove that Japan committed unprecedented crimes against the Koreans during its occupation and rule over Korea in the first half of the last century, the article notes that such crimes are the most hideous ones as they were aimed to completely destroy a country and a nation and it is, therefore, an unavoidable political responsibility for Japan to redeem them from the viewpoint of international law.

The article goes on:

Japan should honestly admit that the Japanese imperialists perpetrated massacres of Koreans in violation of international law in the past to exterminate the Korean nation and own a state responsibility for those crimes.

There can be neither confidence nor improved relations between the DPRK and Japan unless Japan redresses its crime-woven past.

The issue of improving the bilateral relations can be successfully settled only when good-neighborly relations are opened between the two countries in the interests of their peoples as required by the times on the basis of Japan's settlement of its inglorious past.

Japan's settlement of its past is the core issue enshrined in the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration and the master key to normalizing the bilateral relations.

The present Japanese ruling forces are, however, taking a negative approach towards the above-said declaration. They are running the whole gamut of petty tricks to evade legal, moral and state responsibilities at any cost, whitewashing the above-said crimes, far from making reflection and reparation for those unheard-of crimes committed by Japan against the Koreans in the past.

They are frantically pursuing a hostile policy towards the DPRK and escalating their moves for reinvasion, talking about someone's non-existent "military threat". It is aimed to stir up bitterness toward the DPRK in the Japanese society and revive militarism and convert Japan into a military power in a bid to realize its old dream of "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere".

It is pity that Japan has no statesmen with intellectual thinking power and vision, concludes the article.