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Japan recalls envoy after South Korea's Lee visits disputed islands
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South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak bows after delivering his speech during the inaugural session of the 19th National Assembly in Seoul July 2, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Lee Jae-Won
SEOUL |
SEOUL (Reuters) - Japan recalled its ambassador to South Korea on Friday after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visited disputed islands believed to contain frozen natural gas deposits potentially worth billions of dollars.
Lee is the first South Korean leader to make the trip to the islands that have been a persistent irritant in relations between the two countries even after they moved on from Japan's colonial occupation to develop flourishing commercial ties.
The two sides have also worked together to try to rein in North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Japan issued a terse warning over the islands, known as Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, which lie equidistant from the two mainlands, and summoned South Korea's ambassador to Tokyo to formally lodge a complaint.
Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba also said Tokyo had recalled its envoy to Seoul.
"The visit to Takeshima by President Lee is unacceptable in light of Japan's stance on this issue," Gemba was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
Officials in South Korea said the visit was meant to highlight the islands' importance as a natural reserve and was not aimed at stirring up trouble.
"There shouldn't be anything unusual in a national leader visiting a place that is our territory," an official said.
Lee travelled to a larger island called Ulleungdo off the Korean peninsula's east coast, which is not disputed, and made the final leg under tight security with military and coast guard escort.
Lee's stop on the islands was largely overlooked in South Korea, where he is in the final year of a mandatory single five-year term mired in corruption scandals involving former close aides and family members.
(Additional reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto in Tokyo; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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You are so right. Maybe before this century ends, China will take over the all the main Japanese islands and give Okinawa to the United States.
Japan has apologized for the general war including in Korea 14 times.
Japan has apologized to Korea individually for its colonialism and the war 15 times.
Japan has apologized for the comfort woman situation in Asia (includes Korea) 5 times.
Japan has apologized to Korea individually for Korean comfort women 4 times.
These apologies do not include the compensation paid to comfort women under the 1965 treaty, that the South Korean government withheld from individuals and instead invested it in industry. A treaty which exempts Japan from any further payment obligations to South Korea.
It also does not include the setup of the Asian Women’s Fund which included a personal signed apology to individual comfort women from the Japanese Prime Minister at the time (Murayama). The thing is Korea doesn’t want doesn’t want apologies. Its government at the time of its 1965 treaty kept all the compensation and invested it in industry. The Koreans are just money grubbing.
Japan has actually asked for international mediation to decide who owns these rocks (there is no natural source of water on them, no-one ever lived there before Korea put the desalination plant in). Korea to this date is refusing to let international mediation decide ownership – that’s how confident Korea is about its claim.
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