Japanese politicians express condolences over death of Kim Dae Jung+

TOKYO, Aug. 18 Kyodo - Prime Minister Taro Aso and other Japanese officials and politicians expressed condolences Tuesday over the death of former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, who had close ties with Japan.

''On behalf of the government and people of Japan, I offer my most sincere
condolences to the government and people of South Korea,'' Aso said in a
statement.
The former president worked tirelessly on the formation of a new Japanese-South
Korean partnership through such measures as the announcement of a joint
declaration with Japan in 1998 and the co-hosting of soccer's World Cup finals
in 2002, he said.
''I hereby express my deepest respects to former President Kim Dae Jung's
achievements,'' he said.
Kim's ''Sunshine Policy'' of engagement toward North Korea was not exactly a
success but he was a ''very receptive'' president, said Aso's top deputy, Chief
Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura.
Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said memories of Kim remain fresh in
the minds of Japanese due to his kidnapping by South Korean intelligence agents
from a Tokyo hotel in 1973.
Nakasone praised Kim's role in promoting relations with Japan.
When Kim was an opposition leader under the government of then President Park
Chung Hee in the 1960s, only Kim's group supported the normalization of
relations with Japan, and after he was elected president, he issued a
future-oriented joint declaration with Japan, according to Nakasone.
Main opposition Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama released a
statement saying, ''He was a symbol of democratization and greatly contributed
to the modernization of South Korea.''
Kim also helped private-sector exchanges between South Korea and Japan when he
was president, Hatoyama said in the statement.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner who championed inter-Korean reconciliation died
Tuesday afternoon after a battle with pneumonia. He was 85.
==Kyodo