Yonhap reports:

South Korea demands Japan revise defense white paper on Dokdo

South Korea Friday demanded Japan revise its defense white paper that includes a set of rocky South Korean islets in the East Sea as its territory. Dokdo has long been the target of Japan’s territorial claims. South Korea has stationed a police contingent on the islets since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War to symbolize its ownership. A married couple now resides there during the fishing season. “We repeatedly urge the Japanese government to acknowledge that its sovereignty claim over Dokdo is a behavior that hampers the future-oriented development of South Korea-Japan relations by trying to justify its colonial past,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry summoned the military attache at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul and lodged a strong complaint against the issuance Friday of this year’s edition of the white paper. “Japan approved the 2007 defense white paper that described Tokdo as part of its territory in a cabinet meeting this morning and made public the book,” the statement said. The annual Japanese defense white paper has defined Dokdo as part of Japanese territory since 2005 and said that the sovereignty issue has yet to be resolved. “Japan carried the same description (of the Dokdo islets) in this year’s edition despite grave protests and demands by our government for (their) deletion (from the white paper),” the statement said. Many South Koreans as well as their northern brethren still have bitter memories of the cruel Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

(July 07, 2007)