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SKorea appeals to France over looted royal books
By SANGWON YOON,Associated Press Writer -
Saturday, March 20
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SEOUL, South Korea – The South Korean president appealed to France's foreign minister on Friday for a resolution to a dispute involving scores of silk-bound, engraved books French troops looted from the royal library of the dynasty that ruled Korea for centuries.
The raid on the library on an island off Korea's west coast in 1866 was retaliation for the execution of a French priest. Soldiers seized some 350 manuscripts and set fire to 5,000 more before retreating, and the French National Library in Paris now has custody of nearly 300 of the books.
Only one of the manuscripts has been brought back to South Korea _ in 1993 on a permanent loan.
The books detail court protocol for royal ceremonies and rites, and carry engravings that historians say could reveal much about the history, art and handicraft of the Joseon Dynasty, which ruled Korea from 1392 to 1910.
"The issue of the royal texts is of big interest to the South Korean public," President Lee Myung-bak told visiting Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, according to a presidential spokeswoman.
France's top diplomat promised "every possible cooperation," Kim Eun-hye, the spokeswoman, said.
Over dinner, Kouchner and his South Korean counterpart, Yu Myung-hwan, discussed the matter further, pledging to find a solution on the fate of the royal texts, South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman Kim Young-sun said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's special envoy on North Korea, Jack Lang, says he is pushing for the return of all the manuscripts. He told The Associated Press that he discussed it with South Korean officials in Seoul last year, and with Sarkozy.
"For a long time, I have wanted France to make this gesture of friendship, of historic reparation," he said in Paris.
Thirty-one manuscripts have been scanned and made available online in recent years to give South Korean researchers easier access to them.
Lang said negotiations over the treasures are "advancing." An agreement could include an exchange in which South Korean museums loan the works to French museums.
Hwang Pyung-woo, director of the Korea Cultural Heritage Policy Research Institute in Seoul, staged a one-man protest at the airport as Kouchner arrived in South Korea.
"They make too much money off our treasures," he said.
The 1970 U.N. convention on restitution of illegally trafficked cultural property enforces permanent return of all properties obtained through illegal methods. But property that changed hands before the treaty was signed isn't covered.
"Are human rights violations nullified when they occurred before the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?" Hwang said. "France is violating our rights to our heritage, using cunning diplomacy."
___
Associated Press writer Angela Charlton contributed to this report from Paris.
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