UNESCO is considering improving the documentary registration system of its World Heritage body, its Director-General Irina Bokova told Japanese minister Hiroshi Hase on Friday over its listing of Chinese papers on the 1937 Nanking Massacre.
The education, culture, sports, science and technology minister told reporters after the talks that he called for improving the transparency and fairness of the screening and registration process and that they "could share the direction for improvement."
The government has raised an objection to UNESCO's listing in October of "Documents of Nanjing Massacre," which were submitted by China in the Memory of the World register.
Japan and China differ over the number of Chinese victims in the incident.
On Thursday, Hase stressed at the General Conference of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization the need to "swiftly improve governance and transparency" of the Memory of the World program registration.
With Tokyo calling into question the closed-door screening by the International Advisory Committee and seeking a system to embrace the consent of countries concerned, Hase became the first Japanese minister to deliver a speech at the UNESCO congress in a decade.
