1. The Japanese government repeated a provocation over Dokdo in its “Defense of Japan 2014” (Annual White Paper) issued on August 5 by re-including its groundless claim that Dokdo is its indigenous territory; marking the airspace over Dokdo as its own in the map showing its air defense identification zone (ADIZ); and marking the boundary between the exclusive economic zones of the Republic of Korea and Japan that has yet to be agreed upon.

2. The Government of the Republic of Korea cannot accept such unjust claims by Japan and sternly calls on the country to withdraw those claims and prevent the repetition of similar moves. The Japanese government, while proposing that the two countries work to improve their relations, continues taking actions that worsen the bilateral relations. Under such circumstances, the ROK government cannot but question what the Japanese government’s true intentions are.

3. Dokdo is clearly an integral part of the ROK’s territory in terms of history, geography and international law. Moves by the Japanese government to lay unjust claims to Dokdo, which was first sacrificed in the course of the forcible colonization of the Korean Peninsula by the imperial Japan, are tantamount to informing the entire world of its reluctance to have remorse for its past history of aggression.

4. The Japanese government should be well aware that if it continues laying unjustifiable claims to Dokdo, it will be very long before the two countries could see improvement in their relations. 


                 Spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Public Relations of MOFA

* unofficial translation