Ordinance excludes Dokdo from Japanese territory: institute

SEOUL, Jan 3. (Yonhap) -- A South Korean institute said Saturday it recently
discovered a past Japanese ordinance which excluded Dokdo, a set of islets of
disputed territorial ownership, from Japan's sovereignty.
The state-run Korea Maritime Institute said that it reported the finding to the
presidential office on Wednesday of a Japanese document titled "prime ministerial
ordinance No. 24" that was announced on June 6, 1951, which effectively excluded
Dokdo from Japanese territory.
The Dokdo issue has marred bilateral relations for decades, as Japan has
repeatedly claimed that the islets, which lie between the two countries, are
Japanese territory. The Korean Peninsula was colonized by Japan from 1910-1945,
and Japan officially annexed the Dokdo islets in 1905 after claiming they were
not owned by another country.
The ordinance was discovered from documents that were sent from the Japanese
Foreign Ministry to South Korean lawyer Choi Bong-tae. Choi received the
documents concerning past South Korea-Japan talks in July of last year after
having pressed Tokyo to disclose past diplomatic documents. The section relating
to ordinance 24 was reportedly deleted initially.
The ordinance, produced as part of measures of liquidating the Japanese imperial
government's assets after the end of the second World War, also excluded the
islands of Ulleung and Jeju from Japan's "attached islands," the institute said.
It added that the revelation was proof that Japan had not acknowledged Dokdo as
part of its territory until the San Francisco Peace Treaty later in 1951, in
which Japan renounced all of its rights, title and claim to Korea but made no
mention that Dokdo belongs to South Korea.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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