Rodong Sinmun Tuesday says this in a bylined article.

Japanese politicians are working hard to mislead the public opinion by claiming that "a fundamental problem" should be settled if dialogue between two countries is to make progress, and the DPRK is to blame for the failure to repair the bilateral relations.

Their assertion is a brigandish logic as it makes profound confusing of justice and injustice, the article notes, bringing to light the past crimes of Japan.

It is publicly recognized by history that Japan occupied sovereign state Korea by force of arms and in a brigandish manner and enforced an unprecedentedly cruel colonial rule over it. During its rule Japan committed innumerable crimes unprecedented in human history and it inflicted upon the Koreans too many spiritual and moral sufferings and human and material losses to describe.

Japan took away or kidnapped more than 8.4 million Koreans to use them as cannon fodder for its wars of aggression and forced them to toil and moil at the slave work sites.

At least one million Koreans were brutally killed and 200 000 Korean women were forced into sexual slavery, inflicting disgrace and death upon them.

It is human ethics and morality and a legal requirement and practice for a guilty man to apologize for his wrong.

Japan, however, has not admitted any of its past crimes but evaded an apology and reparation for them.

There are on the earth not a few countries and nations that did wrongs intentionally or unintentionally.

But Japan is the only country that persistently evades the repentance and apology for its past crimes.

Japan should liquidate its past crimes as soon as possible. This is necessary for its own sake.