By Chung Min-uck
South and North Korea are again, separately engaged but of the same opinion, in a diplomatic spat with Japan over what the body of water separating the Korean Peninsula and Japan should be called.
Delegates from the respective nations are currently attending the 10th United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names held in the U.N. headquarters in New York to voice their claims.
The conference, held every five year, aims to set the stage for experts to discuss key issues in geographical naming. It began on Tuesday and ends on Aug. 9.
“We reiterated our position for the concurrent use of the name ‘East Sea’ (during the first day of the conference),” said a foreign ministry official who fled to New York to participate in the conference, Thursday.
The official explained that Seoul argued against an operation report submitted to U.N. officials by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), an intergovernmental body in charge of naming oceans and seas.
The IHO, during its meeting in April, decided not to revise the current use of “Sea of Japan” following Tokyo’s claims that the single name should be maintained, despite Seoul’s strong pitch for the concurrent use of “East Sea.”
The IHO document titled “Limits of Oceans and Seas,” also known as S-23, standardizes oceanic boundaries and names around the world.
Japan registered the name “Sea of Japan” with the IHO in 1929 during its colonial rule over the Korean peninsula (1910-1945).
According to the official, dual use of the names should be adopted by the IHO because the IHO resolution made in 1977 states that if more than two nations have different names for a geographical area differently and there is no common ground, the names should be used concurrently.
“The 1977 IHO resolution is not being met yet,” said the official.
Pyongyang, reportedly, also called for the name change during the conference sticking to the position that the body of water should be called the “East Sea of Korea” as historically proven or at least the parallel use of the name “East Sea.”
However, Tokyo voiced that the single name should be maintained, sources say.
Though decisions discussed in the conference are not binding, the two Koreas “should publicize the issue to the utmost to the U.N. members” since, unlike Dokdo islets which Seoul effectively controls, Tokyo has the upper hand in this case, said the official.
The sea naming discussion between the two Koreas and Japan is scheduled to take place on Monday.
Seoul first raised the issue in the U.N. conference in 1992.