Friday, Aug. 1, 2008Compiled from AP, Kyodo
WASHINGTON — The United States has decided to reverse a recent decision to change the national classification of islets at the center of a territorial dispute between Japan and South Korea, a U.S. official said Wednesday.
The initial decision by the U.S. Board of Geographic Names was to change the islets' listing from South Korean to "nondesignated sovereignty." It infuriated people in South Korea. Seoul recalled its ambassador to Tokyo early this month to protest Japan's inclusion in school textbooks of a Japanese claim to the South Korea-controlled islets, called Dokdo in Korean and known as Takeshima in Japan.
The reversal comes as U.S. President George W. Bush prepares to visit South Korea, a key Asian ally, next month.
Dennis Wilder, a White House Asia adviser, told reporters that "a very high-level" South Korean government official contacted the Bush administration about the decision. Bush asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to look into the matter, Wilder said, and the United States determined that the change "was not warranted at this time."
"We regret that this change in designation was perceived by South Koreans as some sort of change in our policy," Wilder said. The United States has no position on the territorial dispute, he said, and believes the two countries should work diplomatically to resolve the question.
South Korea welcomed the move.
"The swift action shows President Bush fully understands the sentiment of South Koreans, and is an outcome that reflected deep trust and friendship between the two leaders," Lee Dong Kwan, a spokesman for South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, said in comments posted on the presidential Web site.
Japan tried to downplay the U.S. decision, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura saying in Tokyo he does not believe the latest move reflects any change in America's position on the issue.
The United States simply returned the designation of the islets to its earlier classification as part of a broader examination process, the top Japanese government spokesman said.
Machimura ruled out the possibility of Japan lodging a protest against Washington, saying, "We don't necessarily think we have to react excessively each time a U.S. government organization does something."
The State Department said the initial redesignation was done to "be in conformity with U.S. government efforts to standardize the filing of all features to which we do not recognize claims of sovereignty."
Michael Green, Bush's former Asia adviser, said that had the administration not made the reversal, it was "going to be the lead story for President Bush's visit in Korea."
Bloody protest
Kyodo News
A South Korean man in his 50s cut his finger with a knife Thursday morning near the Prime Minister's Official Residence in protest over a territorial dispute between Japan and South Korea, police said.
The man sustained a shallow cut around 7 mm long at the tip of the ring finger of his right hand, police said, adding he was apparently attempting to write his protest in blood on a flag.
He was with several others at the time on a sidewalk not far from the prime minister's residence.
The man was quoted by police as saying, "I am here to stage a protest over the Dokdo issue."
The issue has received renewed attention since Japan decided in mid-July to effectively claim for the first time sovereignty over the islets in the Sea of Japan — called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean — in a teaching guideline for junior high schools.
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