SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ― South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo visited a set of islets Tuesday at the center of a territorial dispute with Japan as the highest-level official ever to travel there.
Tokyo criticized Han's brief trip to the rocky outcroppings lying about halfway between the Korean peninsula and Japan.
"I don't think taking an action like this to highlight our differences is appropriate," said Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura. "We think it is important to deal with the matter calmly."
Han, accompanied by culture and transportation ministers, flew to the islets by helicopter and stayed there for about an hour, his office said.
The South Korean-controlled islets, called Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese, have long been a source of discord between Seoul and its former colonial ruler Tokyo.
Han's trip to the islets came as the territorial row flared anew earlier this month when Japan said it would recommend in a government teaching manual that students learn about Tokyo's claims to the islets.
South Korea recalled its ambassador from Japan in protest and demonstrators have held regular rallies at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, which has been surrounded by patrols of riot police.
Many in Korea feel bitterness toward Japan because of Tokyo's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.
The trip also comes amid anger in South Korea over a U.S. agency's move to change the status of the islets to "nondesignated sovereignty" on its Web site.
The U.S. Board of Geographical Naming had previously labeled the disputed islets as South Korean territory.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said Monday the change does not represent a shift in U.S. policy, saying "we do not take a position on Korea's claim or Japan's claim to the islands."
Meanwhile, South Korea plans to hold an annual naval drill near the islets Wednesday.
The drill, including two F-15 fighter jets and eight vessels, is aimed at reaffirming "our military's commitment to defend Dokdo and checking the defense posture of Dokdo," the navy said in a statement.
North Korea condemned Japan on Tuesday for laying claim to the islets, accusing Tokyo of attempting to "grab (Dokdo) at present and the whole of Korea in the future and, furthermore, reinvade the rest of Asia."
"The Japanese authorities had better stop at once" their attempts to grab the islets, the North's History Society said in a statement, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
『 In Washington, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said Monday the change does not represent a shift in U.S. policy, saying "we do not take a position on Korea's claim or Japan's claim to the islands." 』
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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/07/113_28377.html
【 THE KOREA TIMES 】
07-29-2008 11:12
US Repeats No Change in Dokdo Policy
(中略)
"The U.S. position for decades has been to not take a position regarding the sovereignty of the islands in question," Yonhap News quoted Gonzalo Gallegos, deputy spokesman for the State Department, as telling a daily briefing. "The change to the Web site does not represent a change in U.S. policy, but rather an action to ensure consistency with that policy."
The response came days after the U.S. Board of Geographical Naming (BGN) changed Dokdo's status to "undesignated sovereignty" on its Web site from its previous listing as South Korean territory. That outraged South Koreans, who still harbor bitter memories of Japan's brutal colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945.
(中略)
"The placement of Liancourt Rocks under the Board of Geographical Naming's file designation of undesignated sovereignty has no bearing on the U.S. government's position, which has not changed,"
Gallegos was quoted as saying.
"Our position has for decades _ and I repeat _ been not to take a position regarding the sovereignty and to use the name Liancourt Rocks to refer to the islets," he said. "The refiling was done to be in conformity with U.S. government efforts to standardize the filing of all features to which we do not recognize claims of sovereignty."
(中略)
Gallegos expressed hope that Seoul and Tokyo will resolve the issue "peacefully between themselves."
"We do not take a position on Korea's claim or Japan's claim to the islets. This is a long-standing dispute which the two sides have handled with restraint in the past, and we expect that they will continue to do so."
Despite the ostensible U.S. neutrality on the Dokdo issue, the South Korean government sees the U.S. naming agency's decision as a fresh bomb that might trigger another diplomatic row after weeks of street rallies in South Korea against U.S. beef imports.
(以下略)
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アメリカ側の正式な発言全文は今のところ見つけられていません。
また、『 trigger another diplomatic row 』、すなわち
「米国の牛肉輸入とは別の外交論争の引き金となるかもしれない」
という記述は日本版には無く、この言葉は米国に対する威嚇とも取れます。
「日本は大事なものを失った」というセリフと同じなのかもしれません。
29 :名無しさん@九周年:2009/02/17(火) 14:28:30 ID:anWrWRbx0
1894 French map of Korea and Japan
http://dokdo-or-takeshima.blogspot.com/2009/02/1894-french-map-of-korea-and-japan.html