Jul 28 06:49 PM US/EasternWASHINGTON, July 28 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The United States is remaining neutral in a territorial row between Japan and South Korea over a pair of rocky islets Seoul controls, the State Department said Monday.
"As we've said in the past, the question of the sovereignty of these islets is for Japan and Korea to resolve peacefully between themselves. We do not take a position on Korea's claim or Japan's claim to the islands," department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said at a news briefing.
"It's a long-standing dispute, which the two sides have handled with restraint in the past, and we expect that they will continue to do so. We'd welcome any outcome agreed to by both Korea and Japan," he said.
The comments 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.
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.
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