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On Wednesday, South Korea officially asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the Japanese flag "Rising Sun" from the Tokyo Olympics next year, comparing it to a Nazi swastika and qualifying it reminder offending colonial atrocities.
The official flag of Japan is a red circle on a white background. The flag that the South Koreans opposed shows a red sun with 16 rays extending outward. The "Rising Sun" flag has been used by Japan for centuries and is still used by the military's self-defense forces of the Asian nation. The flag was also the symbol used by the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy during the Second World War and painfully reminds many South Koreans of the reign of Japan on the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
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The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of South Korea sent this letter to the IOC to express its "disappointment" at the decision of the Tokyo Organizing Committee to authorize the flag, which has been adopted by the far right in Japan, and to make comparisons with the use of the flag. Confederate flag.
Organizers of Tokyo 2020 said in a statement earlier that "the flag itself is not considered a political statement, so it is not considered a prohibited element."
A Min-suk, a sports committee member from South Korea, criticized the decision to allow the flag at a press conference held on Tuesday, the International Business Times reported.
The Japanese military flag, the flag of the rising sun, floats on the JS Kunisaki, Japan's Maritime Defense Force's Tank Landing Ship, anchored at Yokosuka, near Tokyo, on May 27, 2014, photo d & # 39; archive.
(AP)
"A flag symbolizing the war is not suitable for peaceful Olympics," he said. "The flag of the Rising Sun looks like a symbol of the devil for Asians and Koreas, just as the swastika is a symbol of the Nazis."
In Wednesday's letter, the South Korean Sports Ministry said it was disappointed with Tokyo's decision to allow the flag display on the Olympic venues and again called the committee to ban it.
The Olympic controversy is only the last conflict between the allies of the United States.
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Relations between South Korea and Japan have reached their lowest level in decades. The dispute over the compensation of forced labor during the colonial regime has turned into a series of quarrels that have affected trade and security. Some South Koreans are boycotting even Japanese products and tourism between the two countries has collapsed, the Washington Post reported.
South Korea's anger against the use of the flag increased in 2011 and was used to stoke anti-Japanese nationalism. Just last week, Japan withdrew from an international review of the fleet organized by South Korea because it refused to remove the flag of the "rising sun" from its ships.
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