PYONGYANG (Kyodo) North Korea is "disappointed" by Prime Minister Naoto Kan's recent apology only to South Korea for Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, a senior North Korean official said Friday.
Kan's statement "retreats" from a similar statement issued in 1995 by then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, which apologized to North Korean and other Asian victims of Japan's past aggression, Song Il Ho, ambassador for normalization talks with Japan, said in an interview in Pyongyang.
"Looking at expressions and the depth of apology in Kan's statement, we don't totally understand what Japan is apologizing for and whom it is apologizing to," Song said. "The statement gave a sense of disappointment and resentment to all (North) Koreans."