SOUTH KOREA/FILE: South Korea calls Japan's survey on disputed islands a 'provocative action' against its territory

Record ID: 524382

  • Title: SOUTH KOREA/FILE: South Korea calls Japan's survey on disputed islands a 'provocative action' against its territory
  • Date: 2nd August 2013
  • Summary: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AUGUST 2, 2013) (REUTERS) FUNAKOSHI WALKING AT LOBBY OF FOREIGN MINISTRY BUILDING
  • Embargoed: 17th August 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Korea, Republic of
  • Country: South Korea
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6LGBYR75D03OKH82E8M7WE4J9
  • Story Text: South Korea formally protested to the Japanese government on Friday (August 2) over Tokyo's first opinion poll on a disputed island chain and called the survey a 'provocative action' against its territory.
    On Thursday (August 1), Japan's Cabinet Office released the results of the survey on the Japanese people's opinions on the disputed islands called 'Dokdo' in Korean and Takeshima in Japan.
    In protest against the opinion poll, the South Korean foreign ministry summoned a Japanese embassy official.
    Lee Sang-deok, the ministry's deputy director-general for Northeast Asian affairs, officially complained to Takehiro Funakoshi, political affairs minister of the Japanese embassy in Seoul.
    "Our government severely remonstrates with the Japan government for repeatedly taking a provocative action on the pretext of the survey, against Dokdo, which is clearly our territory historically, geographically and by international law. We strongly urge Japan to immediately stop such an action," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young in Seoul.
    "Our government thinks it deplorable that the Japanese government continues to make the absurd claims over Dokdo and some of the Japanese political leaders are repeatedly making snobbish remarks and showing their wrong perception of history," the spokesman added.
    The Japanese government polled 3,000 Japanese adults aged twenty or older and 1,784 of them responded to the survey, according to the Japanese cabinet office.
    Japan said the survey showed six out of 10 Japanese consider the disputed islands as Japanese territory, although the chain is controlled by Seoul.
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