South Korea sternly demanded yesterday that Japan abandon a planned scientific survey of disputed islets in the waters between them, but Tokyo refused to back down, declaring it would go ahead with the study.
The Japanese plan to survey the rocky outcroppings -- held by Seoul but loudly claimed by Tokyo -- has triggered an outcry in South Korea and prompted it to dispatch a flotilla of patrol boats to guard the territory.
One of two survey vessels docked on Japan's west coast left port yesterday, but it was unclear if it was headed toward the islands, Kyodo News agency reported. Japan has refused to provide a schedule; some news reports said the survey could start as soon as today.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon warned Japan not to go ahead, saying his country -- which has long protested Japan's repeated claims to the islets -- was preparing for "all scenarios" in the dispute.
"If Japan pushes ahead ... we will react sternly to it in accordance with international and domestic laws," Ban told a nationally televised news conference.
"The responsibility for all problems caused by this lies with Japan," he said.
"The government is preparing countermeasures for all scenarios," Ban said without elaborating.
He spoke after President Roh Moo-hyun held a sudden meeting with security ministers to discuss the dispute.
Later in the day, the South Korean parliament passed a resolution calling for a halt to the survey.
Ban's comments came after Roh on Tuesday called the survey, expected to last through the end of June, an "offensive provocation." South Korean local media have reported that Seoul may even try to capture Japanese vessels entering disputed waters.
Japan, however, has flatly refused to abandon the project. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said yesterday that Japan's right to the study was protected under international law.
"I would like the South Korean side to understand this point well," Abe told reporters. "Japan will calmly proceed with its activities in line with international law."
The bluster on both sides, however, was coupled with calls to find a diplomatic solution to the impasse. The two countries have sparred repeatedly in recent years over the islets, which rise from waters rich in fish and other national resources.
The dispute flared recently when Japan's Education Ministry edited public school textbooks to say the volcanic outcroppings belong to Japan. Seoul's ambassador to Japan issued a formal complaint over the change.
The surveys are aimed at collecting hydrographic data. Japan's Sankei and Asahi newspapers said the boats -- 563-tonne Meiyo and 549-tonne Kaiyo -- were to collect data before an international conference on ocean floor topography in June in Germany.
At the conference, South Korea was expected to propose its own name for the area surrounding the islets, the paper said. Seoul has long objected to the use of "Sea of Japan" to denote the body of water between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, preferring the name "East Sea."
The island tiff comes amid rocky relations between the two Asian neighbors.
South Korea, which nurses angry memories of Japan's harsh 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula, has fervently objected to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a Tokyo war shrine considered by critics to be a glorification of Japanese militarism.
Roh canceled a scheduled summit with Koizumi last year because of the shrine visits and later avoided a customary one-on-one meeting with the Japanese leader on the sidelines of a regional conference.
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