On August 9, 2010, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan apologized to South Korea for Japan's 20th-century colonization of the Korean peninsula. Japanese colonial rule on the Korean peninsula was fraught with allegations of harsh governance and war crimes. The statement was timed to coincide with the anniversaries of the 1910 annexation of the peninsula and the 1945 declaration of South Korean independence. This apology from the prime minister followed a similar apology by Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada in February 2010. Both Kan and Okada also praised the Murayama Statment of 1995 in their respective apologies—the most notable public apology for Japanese imperialism to date.

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