Japan heaved a sigh of relief yesterday after South Korea and Japan struck an accord averting a stand-off over an ocean survey near a chain of disputed islets.
"It was the most realistic compromise at that stage," Asahi Shimbun said in its editorial. "Both dropped their claims and reached a peaceful compromise."
"We praise the efforts made by the two sides to avert the crisis," the influential newspaper said.
Tension had mounted since Japan pushed last week for a survey of the ocean bed around the disputed islands, called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
Tokyo said it needed to conduct the study to submit a counter-proposal to an international oceanographic meeting in June, which was to consider Seoul's proposal to use Korean names for features on the seabed.
Resolution
But the two countries defused the latest row after South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan and his Japanese counterpart Shotaro Yachi held their last-ditch talks in Seoul.
Under the settlement, South Korea agreed to delay its push for the naming proposal while Japan suspended the study.
"The agreement resulted from the efforts of the both sides, which handled the issue calmly under international law," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shintaro Abe said late on Saturday.
"We want to make efforts to build a forward-looking friendship with South Korea," Abe added.
Hidenao Nakagawa, a senior lawmaker of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), called for continued efforts to ease the tension, saying: "We are sharing the same sea."
But the conservative Sankai Shimbun daily warned that a territorial row could easily emerge again if Seoul made a similar proposal next year.
Ships turn around
Early yesterday, two Japan Coast Guard survey ships, which had been on standby awaiting orders off Tottori, some 200km south of the disputed islets, left for Tokyo, suspending the mission, officials said.
Japan has long stressed its sovereignty over the South Korean-controlled chain of islands, which has infuriated South Korea, where bitter memories remain of Japan's brutal rule over the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
Japan's ties with South Korea and China have already been strained by Koizumi's repeated visits to a war shrine which honors about 2.5 million war dead and 14 top war criminals.
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