South Korea's Deputy Prime Minister for Education and Human Resources Han Wan-sang welcomed Tuesday Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's offer to set up a forum with South Korea for joint research of history.
In a speech before the 31st Session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris, Han said he hopes the joint forum will open a new era of future-oriented cooperation between Korea and Japan.
During a one-day visit to Seoul Monday, Koizumi proposed to President Kim Dae-jung that the two countries launch a forum of historians to resolve a dispute over textbooks.
Seoul-Tokyo relations strained rapidly after the Japanese government approved middle school history textbooks in May that critics say whitewash Japan's wartime atrocities.
The education minister also said he supports a UNESCO recommendation that the two countries should back efforts to revise history textbooks.