Asia-Pacific

S.Korea, Japan try to calm isles disputes

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-04-22 11:02

Senior South Korean and Japanese diplomats met for a second day on Saturday to try to end a row over disputed islands that has hurt ties long strained by Japan's colonial rule of Korea last century.

A sign in the shape of a South Korean flag is seen on desolate islands called Tokto in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, in this undated photograph. A senior Japanese envoy arrived in Seoul on Friday to seek a middle ground in a standoff over a group of desolate islands claimed by both countries that has jarred an already strained relationship between the two. [AP]

South Korea has warned of "stern measures" and a possible high-seas showdown if Japan presses ahead with a plan to survey waters near the desolate rocky islands called Tokto in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese.

The islands sit in rich fishing grounds and South Korea's state gas firm says they lie above unexploited energy resources potentially worth billions of dollars.

South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan is meeting Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi at a hotel in central Seoul.

The talks follow sessions on Friday described as "tough" by Tokyo where the two sides were unable to narrow differences on how to defuse the latest standoff over the islands that sit about the same distance from the mainlands of both countries.

Yachi said at Friday's meetings the survey was nothing more than pure maritime research, but Yu rejected the explanation, according to South Korean media reports.

South Korea has said Japan's plan to survey the waters amounted to an attempt to claim rights to the islands it had seized in colonial times and then returned after Japan's World War Two defeat.

Seoul says the islands were among the first parts of its territory seized by Japan when it began the process of annexing and colonising the peninsula a century ago.

Japan says its possession of the islands were well established before its annexation of Korea and the 1951 San Francisco peace treaty with Japan did not cover the disputed islands.