Japan demanded yesterday that South Korea immediately halt an operation to chart waters claimed by both countries, and sent a coast guard patrol boat chasing after the South Korean ship conducting the survey.
South Korean officials, meanwhile, said that the Japanese patrol boat was encroaching on their country's waters, and the survey ship continued its work in the disputed waters surrounding rocky islets called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in Korea. They lie roughly halfway between the two countries.
Japan also said it may resurrect plans -- canceled in April -- to conduct its own maritime survey in the disputed waters, which would further stoke regional tensions.
"It is extremely regrettable," a Japanese Foreign Ministry statement said of South Korea's survey. "We demand they immediately stop."
Japanese coast guard official Naoki Mori said Japan was considering its own survey of the waters, but that the government has not reached a formal decision.
The South Korean ship, which launched the survey on Monday, entered waters that Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone at 6:41am yesterday. It was intercepted by a Japanese patrol boat soon after and was being monitored through the day, the coast guard said.
South Korea, however, claimed that the Japanese ship had entered South Korean waters.
South Korean Maritime Affairs Ministry official Park Noh-jung in Seoul said that the Japanese ship encroached on South Korean waters near the islets. He declined to give further details.
South Korea's Yonhap News agency reported that the survey was supposed to be completed yesterday, but Kim Ok-soo, from the National Oceanographic Research Institute, said the survey would continue until July 17.
In Tokyo, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Shotaro Yachi later summoned the South Korean ambassador over the dispute, according to an official of the Foreign Ministry.
The official could not give further details, but Kyodo News agency reported talks ended without reaching a solution.
Yachi demanded South Korea stop the survey and also said that Japan may begin its own survey "at an appropriate time," Kyodo said.
Ra Jong-yil, South Korean ambassador to Japan, defended his country's decision to go ahead with the operation, the report said.
The Japanese patrol boat radioed the South Korean Haeyang 2000 to stop its activities yesterday, but the vessel refused and headed toward the set of disputed islets, the Japanese coast guard statement said.
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