ID :
201044
Sat, 08/13/2011 - 12:32
Auther :

S. Korean political leaders to visit Dokdo in show of support

(UPDATES with parliamentary meeting on East Sea, background in the last 5 paras; ADDS photo)
   SEOUL, Aug. 13 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's ruling and opposition leaders plan to tour the easternmost islets of Dokdo by helicopter early next week to counter Japan's latest moves to reinforce its territorial claim to them, party officials said Saturday.
   The separate tours of the rocky islets by Hong Joon-pyo, chairman of the ruling Grand National Party, and Sohn Hak-kyu, head of the main opposition Democratic Party, are timed to coincide around Aug. 15 Korean Liberation Day from Japan's colonial rule in 1945, they said.
   The ruling party chairman will tour the islets on Sunday, while the opposition chief will go there on Monday, party officials said.
   The tours are part of South Korean efforts to counter the latest Japanese moves to promote its claim to the South Korean-controlled islets in the body of water between the two countries.
  


   During the tours, both leaders will show their solidarity with police officers guarding the islets and strengthen their resolve to counter Japan's recent territorial claim to the islets, aides said.
   The leaders will also issue statements asking their Seoul government to take strong diplomatic actions against the Japanese moves, they said.
   Despite close economic and other ties between the two countries, anti-Japanese sentiment lingers among South Koreans especially over Tokyo's claim to the islets. Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910 till 1945.
   In a show of anger at the latest Japanese moves, a growing number of South Korean politicians have recently visited Dokdo.
   In one of the latest diplomatic spats, a group of three Japanese lawmakers were denied entry to South Korea earlier this month because of their plan to visit Ulleung, a major South Korean island close to Dokdo, to promote Japan's claim the to islets.
   South Korea is also angry at Tokyo's approval of history textbooks and a 2011 defense paper that refer to Dokdo as Japan's territory.
   As a countermeasure, a South Korean parliamentary committee had planned to hold a meeting on Dokdo on Friday, but it was canceled due to bad weather.
   Meanwhile, ruling and opposition lawmakers plan to call in Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan to a parliament meeting to hear the government's position on the name for waters between the neighbors, called "East Sea" by Seoul and "Sea of Japan" by Tokyo.
   The move comes as the U.S. recently reaffirmed that it uses the single name "Sea of Japan," citing a long-standing international practice, sparking uproar among Koreans who still have bitter memories of Japan's harsh colonial rule.
   "We will seek measures to counter Japan's territorial claims on Dokdo and the naming of East Sea," said Rep. Yoo Ki-june of the Grand National Party, a member of foreign affairs parliamentary committee.
   The foreign minister earlier said the government is putting diplomatic efforts to persuade the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) to recognize the waters as East Sea or at least use both names in the next meeting slated for next April.
   Currently, 28 percent of civilian maps in the world use both East Sea and Sea of Japan concurrently, according to South Korea's government data.

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