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S Korea stages exercises near disputed islets

South Korea staged a military drill near tiny islands claimed by both Seoul and Tokyo yesterday, just a day after the first-ever visit by a South Korean prime minister, officials said.

The defense ministry confirmed the day-long exercises near a group of rocky and treeless islets, called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, which are at the center of an intensifying dispute between the countries.

The navy said the drill in the Sea of Japan included a 3,000-tonne destroyer, anti-submarine helicopters and the country’s latest fighter jets.

Annual maneuver

It said the annual event “aims to block ‘imaginary forces’ from entering the islets and drive them away.” A small South Korean police contingent stays in the islets.

The drill was the first of two scheduled major exercises near the islands this year. The annual military maneuvers had previously been held in a low-key manner but were made public this year.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, accompanied by two Cabinet ministers, visited the islets on Tuesday — the highest-ranking Seoul official ever to do so.

Japan criticized Han’s trip.

“I don’t think an action like this to highlight the differences in positions is very appropriate,” Japanese government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said.

Han’s office dismissed the Japanese reaction yesterday.

“It is so natural that the prime minister should pay a visit to the territory of his own nation,” said Kim Wang-ky, chief spokesman for Han. “It is inappropriate to try to take issue about it.”

The dispute erupted again earlier this month when Japan’s new educational guidelines urged Japanese students to have a deeper understanding of their country’s claim over the islands.

The US Board on Geographic Names has changed its classification of the islets from a territory of South Korea to one with “undesignated sovereignty.”

'Regrettable'

Han called the US decision “very regrettable,” and officials said on Monday that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak — who will welcome US President George W. Bush to Seoul next week — was “outraged.”

Lee has ordered a probe to see if Seoul’s embassy in Washington and its ambassador should be held responsible for any possible “negligence of duty” in handling the case, officials said.

Taking the dispute seriously, Seoul has already summoned its top envoy to Japan in protest.

The territorial row originates in Japan’s 20th century imperial expansion and its colonization of the Korean peninsula.

Japan claimed the islands in 1905 after winning a war with Russia. It went on to annex the entire Korean peninsula from 1910 until its defeat in 1945 at the end of World War II.

Seoul now plans to make them sufficiently habitable for civilians.
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