Jul 31 01:21 AM US/EasternSEOUL, July 31 (AP) - (Kyodo) — South Korea on Thursday welcomed the U.S government's decision to restore wording in a geographic names database to indicate that a pair of rocky islets claimed by Japan are South Korean territory.
President Lee Myung Bak's spokesman Lee Dong Kwan said the "unusually swift" reaction by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush in the wake of South Korean protests shows that Bush "has a full understanding of the Korean people's sentiment" and also "reflects deep trust and friendship" between the two leaders.
"This reflects the restoration of the South Korea-U.S. alliance and mutual trust," he said in a brief statement.
The spokesman's remarks came after Bush ordered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to check into why the U.S. Board on Geographic Names had recently reclassified the disputed Liancourt Islands, known as Dokdo in South Korea and as Takeshima in Japan, as an area of "undesignated sovereignty" on its website, whereas before it had said the islets are South Korean territory.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Bush said, "I asked Condi Rice to review it, and the database will be restored where it was seven days ago."
The board, which was set up to maintain uniform geographic name usage throughout the U.S. government, now indicates on its website that the islets, which are located in what South Korea calls the East Sea and Japan calls the Sea of Japan, are under South Korean administration.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormick told reporters Wednesday the earlier reclassification, which had sparked outrage in South Korea and prompted its government to lodge complaints with Washington just ahead of Bush's visit to Seoul next week for a summit with Lee, did not reflect a change in U.S. government policy but was merely a decision made at the level of technical experts.
Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, said Wednesday that U.S. policy on the territorial dispute "has been firm and consistent since 1952, and that is, we do not take a position on this territorial dispute, that we believe that South Korea and Japan need to work diplomatically to resolve this issue -- but it is their issue to resolve."
Wilder said that after Bush directed Rice to check into the matter, "it was decided...that the change in designation was not warranted at this time, and so that database is now being restored to where it was prior to this change in designation."
"We regret that this change in designation was perceived by South Koreans as some sort of change in our policy,' he added.
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.
On Thursday, President Lee was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying at a meeting at his office, "We already have effective control over Dokdo and if we make work diligently, we will gain acceptance from the international community."
South Korean Ambassador Lee Tae Sik told a press conference in Washington on Sunday that his government plans to work to get the United States to refer to the islets by their Korean name Dokdo rather than as the Liancourt Rocks, a name that was taken from a French whaling ship that first introduced the territory to Europe in the 19th century.
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