South Korea has made a proposal to Japan to establish an organization to discuss the issue of restoring some 67-thousand cultural assets that Japan has taken out of Korea.
 
The Culture, Sports and Tourism Ministry said Sunday that its minister, Kim Jong-deok, made the proposal to his Japanese counterpart Hakubun Shimomura when they met in Yokohama on Saturday.
 
Kim said Japan’s delegation mentioned an incident in which four South Koreans stole an ancient Buddha statue from a temple in Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture. Kim said the South’s delegation noted that along with that issue, the two sides must also discuss the cultural assets that Japan illegally took out of Korea.
 
Kim and Shimomura met on the sidelines of the sixth round of a meeting of culture ministers from South Korea, China and Japan. During the trilateral meeting, the ministers adopted a joint statement that included substantial ways for the three countries to cooperate in the area of culture.