Two separate Japanese legal statements from the 1950s show that Japan excluded Dokdo from Japan's territorial sovereignty, a South Korean research institute said.
The state-owned Korea Maritime Institute (KMI) discovered that a Japanese document titled "prime ministerial ordinance No. 24," issued on June 6, 1951, effectively excluded Dokdo from Japanese territory, according to Yonhap News Saturday.
KMI reported the finding to the presidential office on Wednesday.
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 covering 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.
Meanwhile, Chosun Ilbo Daily Saturday said that another document, “Ministry of Finance, No. 4,” issued on Dec. 13, 1951, also supports Korea’s sovereignty over Dokdo.
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 under Japanese control from 1910-1945, and Japan officially annexed the Dokdo islets in 1905 after claiming they were not owned by another country.
1 | S. Korea flexes military might in rare parade with US in central Seoul |
![[INTERVIEW] ONEUS returns as 'mermaid prince'](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/8cc3b8d992cd4b8bb43395b014670ca2.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
