Jul 30 09:54 PM US/Eastern(AP) - WASHINGTON, July 30 (Kyodo) — President George W. Bush said Wednesday he has ordered that recognition of South Korea's ownership of a pair of rocky islets that Seoul controls but Japan also claims as its own be reinstated in a U.S. federal naming agency's database.
"I asked Condi Rice to review it, and the database will be restored where it was seven days ago," Bush said in a joint interview with reporters from South Korea, Thailand and China ahead of his departure next week on a tour of the three countries.
The order came after the U.S. Board on Geographic Names was found to have recently revised its description of the disputed territory to assume a more neutral position, prompting the South Korean Embassy in Washington to lodge a protest. Upon the order, the board changed it back to the previous one.
The board's website previously said the Liancourt Rocks, another name for the islets known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, were under South Korea's control, but it now names them an area of "undesignated sovereignty."
The name Liancourt Rocks was taken from a French whaling ship that first introduced the territory to Europe in the 19th century. The islets are located in what Japan calls the Sea of Japan and South Korea calls the East Sea.
South Korea has adopted a more aggressive stance on the territorial dispute since Japan's education ministry earlier this month decided to include a claim to sovereignty over the islets for the first time in a teaching guideline for junior high schools, sparking a backlash in South Korea.
South Korea has recalled its ambassador from Tokyo for an indefinite period, while angry Koreans have mounted a series of anti-Japanese protests outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
Also Wednesday, Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asia on the U.S. National Security Council, confirmed Bush's order and expressed hope that Japan and South Korea can resolve the row diplomatically.
"Let me be very clear that our policy on this territorial dispute has been firm and consistent since 1952, and that is we do not take a position on this territorial dispute," he said at a news briefing.
"It is their issue to resolve," he said.
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