▣...▣ Jannary.9.1958

No.▣...▣1
To : Ambassador Yu Taik Kim
FROM : Foreign Minister
SUBJECT : The question of the Japanese suggested idea of sending a special personal envoy of their Prime Minister
In my Instructions letter of December 28, 1957, you will find the following passage:
As for the suggested idea of a special personal representative of the Japanese Prime Minister, such representative should be dispatched on ter agreement, which will be reached by both sides after the conclusion of the preliminary talks, concerning the personality of the representative and date of dispatching.
As the above qsetation of my letter is self-explanatory in its meaning our Government presumed at that time that agreement might or might not be reached between both sides on the personality of the representative and date of dispatching. Accordingly, if you perused and were careful enough to follow out the said instructions, you might not have approached and impressed the Japanese side as if our Government were ready to receive the personal envoy in question. If so, there might not be unnecessary clamors in Japanese newspapers in tide regard. According to your Report No.40 addressed to His Excellency,
I, in our conversation while you were in ▣...▣, and...▣lly that I thought a▣...▣ers ▣...▣ like Ishill ▣...er than Mr. Yatsugi for the personality of the envoy in question, and after your return to Tokyo, you immediately constested the Japanese side to sound out the possibility for Mr.Ishii to make such a visit to Korea together with Mr. Yatsugi for the purpose of delivering the said personal letter to his excellency.
However, referring to the same of Mr. Ishii, I did not mean that our Government was read to receive the Japanese envoy in question but merely exchanged mutually our views a saying that in case we should receive such enovy, we would prefer Mr. Ishii to Mr. Yatsugi. There is no room for you to misunderstand the intention of our Government, because my instructions letter of December 28, 1958 was written and handed to you shortly before your return trip to Tokyo, and, accordingly, after our conversation you referred to in your Report No.40.
As for the question of the Japanese suggested idea of sending a special personal enovy of their Prime Minister, I hereby advise you again to keep in mind the following Government position:
All that we have done so far is to clear the way which was blocked by the two Japanese claims: one is on the Korean property and another is on the question of Korean sovereignty. All this time we spent a lot of energy due to these two points and Japan's insincerity. How we are glad that Japan finally decided to withdraw their two claims which did never exist and did it. However, we cannot consider this action as an act of great deed done by the Japanese toward Korea. It will be much better if we wait until the Formal conference opens and then Japan shows real spirit of friendship and sincererity. That is the time that we exchange cordialty and friendly spirit. So we think it is a little bit too early to exchange any good-will mission now.