Korea’s foreign ministry calls in Japanese diplomat over Dokdo claim on Tokyo Olympic map

This photo, provided by Professor Seo Kyoung-duk of Sungshin Women’s University on May 28, 2021, shows the map posted by Japan on its Tokyo Olympic website showing the route of its torch relay, with South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo, marked with a dot north of the main island on the map, included as part of its territory. (Yonhap)

SEOUL: Korea’s foreign ministry called in a senior Japanese diplomat Tuesday to lodge a protest after a map on the Tokyo Olympic website showed South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo as part of Japanese territory.

Lee Sang-ryeol, director-general for Asia and Pacific affairs, was expected to express regrets when he meets with Hirohisa Soma, deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, later in the day, ministry spokesperson Choi Young-sam said.

“We will strongly protest Japan’s unfair territorial claims to Dokdo and also stress that an immediate correction be made to the material,” Choi said in a briefing earlier

Dokdo has appeared on the map of the route of the Tokyo Olympic torch relay. Japan rejected mounting calls from South Korea to revise it amid concerns that the inclusion of the islets could undermine the Olympic spirit of peace free from politics.

Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong has called the inclusion of Dokdo on the map “unacceptable,” vowing to address the renewed unjust claims “as strongly as possible.

The government and the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee will send a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) calling for the organization’s active arbitration on the matter, the foreign ministry said in a separate press release, after holding an interagency meeting to discuss the issue.

Late last month, Seoul’s culture ministry and the KSOC sent a letter to Japan’s Olympic Committee requesting a revision of the map.

Dokdo has long been a recurring source of tension between the two neighbors, as Tokyo continues to lay claim to the East Sea islets in its policy papers, public statements and school textbooks.

South Korea has been in effective control of Dokdo, with a small police detachment, since its liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

YONHAP