N. Korea calls Japan moves to underscore isle claim 'disgraceful'

Japan Policy & Politics, Feb 28, 2005

TOKYO, Feb. 25 Kyodo

North Korea's official media on Friday blasted as ''disgraceful'' a Japanese prefectural assembly's move to designate Feb. 22 as ''Takeshima Day'' to underscore Japan's claims to the South Korean-held islets known as Takeshima in Japan and Tokto in the two Koreas.

The Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo, carried the scathing analysis from the Minju Joson daily, in which Japan was deemed ''without an equal in the world in robber-like evil-mindedness.''

By bringing forward again its claim to the islets, the daily said, ''Japan seeks to secure a pretext and chance to stage a comeback to Korea'' -- an allusion to Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.

''Its scheme to invade Korea again by grabbing the islet at any cost is an intolerable act of freely insulting and encroaching upon the dignity and sovereignty of the Korean nation,'' it said, accusing Japan of having a ''wild ambition for territorial expansion.''

The North Korean report appeared one day after South Korea's Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry filed a formal protest with Japan over its Ambassador Toshiyuki Takano's remarks at a news conference Wednesday that ''Takeshima is historically and legally part of Japanese territory.''

Seoul also called ''unacceptable'' the Shimane Prefectural Assembly's move to designate Feb. 22 as ''Takeshima Day'' to raise local awareness of the uninhabited islets, which lie in the Sea of Japan between Japan's largest main island Honshu and the Korean Peninsula.

A group of Shimane assembly members submitted a bill Wednesday to set up a prefectural ordinance to establish ''Takeshima Day.'' It is expected to be enacted during the current assembly session through March 16 as the group, whose members are mostly from the Liberal Democratic Party, holds a majority in the assembly.

South Korea's North Kyongsang Province also announced Wednesday it has decided to stop exchanges with Shimane Prefecture in protest.

According to KCNA, the Minju Joson cited historical materials ''proving that Tok Islet belongs to the Korean territory'' and warned Japan ''to face the reality squarely and stop at once its foolish acts of inviting troubles to itself.''

''The Korean nation today is not the nation which the Japanese imperialists could massacre and fleece as they pleased in the past,'' it said. ''It is the unshakable will of the Korean nation to settle accounts with the Japanese imperialists for all its crimes in forcing misfortunes and sufferings of all descriptions upon the Koreans after illegally occupying Korea.