Asia-Pacific

S.Korea dispatches boat to disputed islands

(AFP)
Updated: 2006-07-03 06:37

"It is important that both sides behave with restraint," Abe, Japan's government spokesman, told a news conference on Thursday.

"As we have just resumed talks on marking our exclusive economic zones, it is desirable to set up a framework in which we cooperate on scientific research."

The two sides launched negotiations aimed at drawing a new exclusive economic zone to settle the dispute in Tokyo this month but failed to narrow differences. Talks will resume in Seoul in September.

An unnamed Japanese foreign ministry official was quoted by Japan's Kyodo news agency as saying Friday that any South Korean survey would force Japan to respond with a survey of its own.

"If South Korea conducts the survey, Japan will do some sort of a survey," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Seoul and Tokyo both lay claim to the volcanic outcroppings located in waters midway between the two states. A South Korean police contingent currently occupies the islets.

Japan claimed the islets in 1905 after winning a war with Russia in the region and went on to annex and rule the Korean peninsula from 1910 until its 1945 defeat in World War II.

South Korea says Seoul's claim to the islets goes back centuries.