S. Korea to continue pushing its claim over disputed islets: Lee

0 Comments | Asian Political News, August 11, 2008

SEOUL, Aug. 6 Kyodo

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak promised Wednesday that Seoul will continue to seek the understanding of international society of its claim of sovereignty over a pair of rocky islets that Seoul controls but Japan also claims as its own.

''We will continue our efforts to...tell the international community of our sovereign rights regarding this Dokdo issue,'' he said, referring to the islets, known as Takeshima in Japan, by their Korean name.

''So we will be very consistent and continuously let people know...this is a sovereign land belonging to South Korea,'' Lee said during a joint press conference with visiting U.S. President George W. Bush.

Lee said he thanked Bush for ordering a week ago that recognition of South Korea's ownership of the islets be reinstated in a U.S. federal naming agency's database.

The order came after the U.S. Board on Geographic Names was found to have revised its description of the islets to assume a more neutral position, prompting the South Korean Embassy in Washington to lodge a protest. Upon the order, the board changed it back to the previous one.

The board's website previously said the Liancourt Rocks, another name for the islets, were under South Korea's control, but it late last month named them an area of ''undesignated sovereignty.''

The name Liancourt Rocks was taken from a French whaling ship that first introduced the territory to Europe in the 19th century. The islets are located in what Japan calls the Sea of Japan and South Korea calls the East Sea.

South Korea has adopted a more aggressive stance on the territorial row since Japan's education ministry last month decided to include a claim to sovereignty over the islets for the first time in a teaching guideline for junior high schools, sparking a backlash in South Korea.

South Korean Ambassador to Japan Kwon Chul Hyun returned to his post on Tuesday after being recalled to Seoul last month in a protest against Japan's claim to sovereignty over the islets.