A simple bowl of curry is at the center of the latest row in a long-running territorial dispute between Japan, North Korea and South Korea.
Media in North and South Korea reacted angrily after an online media report about a seafood curry sold in Japan that includes mounds of rice shaped to resemble Takeshima, which Koreans refer to as Dokdo.
The rocky islets, which lie roughly equidistant between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, are administered by South Korea, but Japan insists they are an integral part of its territory.
Photo: Reuters
The dish features a Japanese flag planted in one of the mounds of rice, which are surrounded by a “sea” of curry sauce.
North Korea’s state-controlled Uriminzokkiri Web site said that the dish betrayed Japanese ambitions to “capture” the islands, where a small police detachment lives alongside its sole resident, Kim Shin-yeol, who lived there with her husband, Kim Sung-do, until his death in 2018.
The dish at the center of the controversy is served at a restaurant on the island of Okinoshima in Shimane, the Japanese prefecture closest to the disputed territory, and comes with side orders of pickles and soup.
South Korean media have also reported on the dish, with a university professor telling the Dong-A Ilbo that Japan had used a “typical cheap trick” to promote its claims to the islands.
It is not the first time that food has reignited the dispute. In 2017, Japanese officials protested after shrimp caught in waters off the islands appeared on the menu at a state banquet during then-US president Donald Trump’s state visit to South Korea.
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