Prime Minister Abe recently appeared in a TV show and talked such rubbish that Japan is willing to bear the "expense for the dismantlement of north Korea's nukes".

It seems that Japan wants to have a share in the rapid process to settle the issue of the Korean Peninsula by showing off its purse.

It is a well-known fact that Japan is now mired in the self-contradiction as it has doggedly resorted to pressure on the DPRK against the trend of the times until recently.

Japan should know what should be done first, though it gets the jitters.

What is basic in the DPRK-Japan relations is for Japan to atone for the past crimes.

Japan is legally and morally obliged to make a sincere apology and reparation for the past history of the colonial rule the Japanese imperialists enforced by illegally occupying Korea in the 20th century. Japan can never evade this responsibility as it is just a historical problem which had to be resolved with the end of the Second World War.

The decades-long colonial rule by the Japanese imperialists was so cruel that it was unprecedented in history. Many Koreans lost their lives and the Korean nation suffered untold human, material, cultural, mental and moral losses.

But Japan has made neither apology nor atonement for its past crimes though more than half a century has passed since its defeat. On the contrary, it is orchestrating a political farce of disguising itself as victim though it is just an assailant.

Japan is loud-voiced about the worn-out story about "abduction" but it is just a stupid act to cover up the hideous crimes against the Korean people and avoid the settlement of its past.

Yohei Kono, former chief Cabinet secretary of Japan, said in a lecture in Tokyo on June 13 that now is the time for Japan to make an apology for having colonized the Korean Peninsula.

This is not just a private opinion of an elder statesman but a view common to Japanese of conscience and great insight.

But the Abe regime pretends ignorance of it.

Japan should honestly make atonement of its past crimes first, instead of playing tricks with money.

That is indispensable for repairing the DPRK-Japan relations.