South Korean president criticise Japan after Abe's shrine visit

South Korean President Park Geun-hye slammed Japan Monday for "digging up wounds of the past" after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid his respects at Tokyo's Yasukuni war Shrine on Thursday, sparking angry protests from South Korea and China, the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency reported. "In the new year ... I hope that there will be no act of letting trust between countries crash and people's feelings deteriorate by digging up wounds of the past," Park was quoted as saying at a meeting with senior aides. The remark was apparently directed at Japan, according to the report. "Should a country repeat acts that do not match universal values and standards of the international community, it can never be assessed as a first-class nation, no matter how affluent it is," Park said. Park also said that just because a country is a front-runner does not mean it is a first-class nation. The shrine honors Japan's war dead, including class-A criminals. Abe was the first Japanese prime minister to visit the shrine in more than seven years. South Korea and China, which suffered from Japan's aggression in the early 20th century, have long resented visits to the war shrine by Japanese leaders, and the latest visit was considered a flagrant disrespect for Japan's neighbors. Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910-45.