[Editorial] Seized royal documents' return through exchange is unacceptable

There has been a fresh breakthrough in the 7-year long negotiations between Korea and France over the issue of returning the Choson Dynasty's Royal Archives that France seized during its 1866 invasion of Korea. The Presidents of the two countries came to an agreement to return France's seized royal documents to us by the end of next year.

The negotiations in the past were deadlocked by the failure to narrow the differences between the two countries, but the first step for the breakthrough was made at their third meeting in Seoul in July when they agreed on the modalities of the documents' return on an exchange basis: France will repatriate the seized documents in the form of a permanent loan in return for the loan of Korea's equally valuable cultural assets to France.

This was then a sort of tentative, verbal agreement, but France apparently conveyed to Korea its intent to make the agreement final, which led to the rapid progress in the stalemated negotiations. This is how the two leaders came to announce Thursday the specific deadline for the documents' return set before the end of next year.

However, we should like to raise some fundamental points over the agreement. The Royal Archives to be returned are clearly our cultural assets, which France looted during its ship's unlawful invasion of Korea's Kanghwa Island in 1866. Thus, it must be made clear here that we are recovering what belongs to us via negotiations.

The return agreement on `an exchange basis' may have the untoward effect of justifying the French ship's looting of our cultural assets, although it may enable us to keep the documents within the country. Korea may mistakenly be taken in by such an agreement to admit France's ownership of the royal documents. It could also mean that the government is not going to raise any issues with the way France came to possess them.

What is so unjustifiable are the terms of this agreement to the effect that cultural assets equally as valuable as the returning royal documents must leave our country. This can set a bad precedent for our future negotiations in the similar cases of returning of cultural assets.

The return agreement on an exchange basis may reflect our last-ditch efforts to somehow find the point of compromise in the face of France's intransigent opposition to the documents' return. But it is important that we must show our steadfast stand to keep our honorable cause in the negotiations to recover such valuable cultural assets as the Chosun Dynasty's Royal Archive documents.

The fourth negotiations are scheduled for Nov. 4 in Paris. Our delegates must be able to address such problems so as to bring about the negotiations to a satisfactory outcome acceptable to all our people.