By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff reporter
Korea has been seeking to bolster its sovereignty over the Dokdo islets in the East Sea for years against Japan’s repeated attempts to challenge its control of them.
But besides issuing a series of diplomatic statements condemning Japan’s claims over Dokdo, the Korean government has not done much to solidify its ownership of the disputed island.
However, an envisioned airport to be built on the nearby Ulleung Island may do the trick as it will help attract more visitors to Dokdo and improve logistics conditions there.
The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs unveiled a plan last December to construct an airport on Ulleung Island for light-weight aircraft carrying up to 60 passengers.
Its runway will be 1.2 kilometers-long and 60 meters-wide, costing about 640 billion won ($590 million) to build.
The ministry said once completed, it will take little more than an hour for a small passenger plane to fly to Ulleung from Gimpo Airport, west of Seoul.
“The construction plan has already been determined economically feasible by the Korea Transport Institute. Currently, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance is looking into it to see whether it is worth spending large amounts of taxpayers’ money. We are confident that the scheme will prove to be economically viable,” a senior ministry official told The Korea Times.
The official said if everything proceeds as planned, the government will likely begin building an airport as early as 2012 and complete it by the end of 2017.
“The planned airport will significantly increase the number of tourists to Ulleung Island and the nearby Dokdo Islets. Currently, those who want to go to visit the islands have to take a ferry from Pohang port and remain onboard for hours. Due to high waves and strong winds, it is not a pleasant experience for visitors,” he stressed.
He then said building an airport in Ulleung may be an ideal solution to boosting Korea’s sovereignty over the Dokdo islets.
“Besides boosting the number of visitors to Dokdo, it will also improve the logistics situation for these two remote islands. The airport will make it easier for the government to transport not only civilian supplies to those who reside in the islands, but also military personnel and weaponry if needed,” the official said, stressing the Dokdo islets are historically and internationally an indisputable part of the Korean territory.
For the past two years, the Lee Myung-bak administration has been searching for ways to strengthen the control of Dokdo and make more foreign countries acknowledge it as part of Korean territory, while refraining from causing diplomatic conflict with the world’s second largest economy.
Korea had initially expected the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who came into power last September, to remain low-key when it comes to Dokdo and restrain from raising the thorny historical issue between the two countries.
But in recent months, the Japanese government has taken a series of attempts to challenge Korea’s sovereignty over the island as part of its effort to bolster its sagging popularity among disgruntled Japanese voters.
In April, the Japanese Diet approved the government’s diplomatic bluebook, an annual report on foreign policies and activities, which described Dokdo ― called Takeshima in Japanese ― as part of Japan’ s territory.