South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday accused Japan of reviving imperialistic ambitions in Asia by claiming disputed islands in the sea between the two countries.
In a hard-hitting televised speech, Roh said Japan's "dark nostalgia" for its imperialist past was revealed by its claims to the islands, which it had annexed during its colonization of the Korean peninsula in the 20th century.
"To our people, Dokdo is the symbol of our full restoration of sovereignty," the president said, referring to the islets known as Takeshima in Japan.
"Dokdo is the first part of land annexed by Japan in the process of invading the Korean peninsula," he said. "This is denying South Korea's full liberation and independence."
He said that Japan's territorial claims showed that Tokyo had yet to cast off its imperialist past and shed colonial claims to Korean territory.
Roh accused the Japanese government was destabilizing the region, "endangering the friendly relations between South Korea and Japan and, further, peace in East Asia."
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi responded with an offer to meet the South Korean leader.
Regular summits between the two leaders were suspended in June last year amid strain over the territorial dispute and other bilateral irritants.
The two countries "should act calmly, regarding friendship between Japan and South Korea as a basic premise," Koizumi was quoted as saying by Jiji Press news agency.
South Korea "should have a future-oriented way of thinking," the prime minister said.
Japan claimed the islets in 1905 after winning a war with Russia in the region and went on to annex the entire Korean peninsula from 1910 until its 1945 defeat in World War II. South Korea says that Seoul's claim to the islets goes back centuries.
In his 10-minute speech, Roh told Japanese leaders to "stop insulting acts against the sovereignty and pride of Koreans."
"Japan should shake off and come out of its dark nostalgia for its imperialist and invasion history," he said.
Last week the two countries struck an accord averting a possible confrontation over the chain of disputed islets, located midway between the two countries in the Sea of Japan [East Sea].
South Korea says the volcanic outcroppings of two main rocks and dozens of smaller ones fall inside its exclusive economic zone but Japan says the two countries' zones overlap around the islets.
Tensions had mounted since Japan pushed for a survey of the ocean bed in the area in order 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.
Japan, which already submitted names for the seabed features in the 1970s, agreed to suspend the survey after South Korea said it would delay its push for the naming proposal.
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