Korea decided to exclude landing maneuvers on the country's easternmost islets of Dokdo from upcoming defense drills as the main purpose of such exercises has already been fulfilled through President Lee Myung-bak's visit to the islets, a senior official said Tuesday.
The Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard are scheduled to kick off biannual Dokdo defense exercises on Friday. The drills previously involved Marine Corps landing on the East Sea islets, but the government decided to exclude such operations from the upcoming drills.
The decision came as tensions between South Korea and Japan have been running high over Dokdo since President Lee Myung-bak made an unprecedented visit to the islets on Aug. 10. Japan, which has claimed Dokdo as its territory, strongly protested the visit.
"Dokdo defense drills are not just simple military exercises. This is an exercise of a political nature aimed at showing off our political determination not to tolerate any aggression on our sacred territory," a senior presidential official told reporters.
"Such a message has already been expressed in the strongest possible means with President Lee's visit to Dokdo. Even if we conduct military drills hundreds of times, we cannot express our determination to safeguard our territory as strongly as the president's visit."
South Korea did not scrap the drills altogether as it could send a "wrong message," he said. The official also flatly dismissed speculation that South Korea scaled back the exercises after protests from Japan.
Officials said the Coast Guard will play a leading role and the military supporting roles in the upcoming exercises aimed mainly at preparing for a situation where civilians attempt to approach and illegally land on the islets.
"Law enforcement is the highest level of exercising our sovereignty over Dokdo," the official said, stressing that the Dokdo issue should be dealt with as a domestic matter and that any illegal activity on Dokdo should be handled by police, not the military.
South Korea has rejected Japan's claims to Dokdo as amounting to denying Korea's independence from its 1910-45 colonial rule because the country reclaimed sovereignty over its territory, including Dokdo and many other islands around the Korean Peninsula, when it regained independence.
South Korea has kept a small police detachment on Dokdo since 1954.
Meanwhile, the presidential official said South Korea and the United States are trying to reach an agreement as early as possible in their negotiations to revise a bilateral pact that has limited the maximum range and the payload weight of Korean ballistic missiles.
Under the so-called "missile guideline," first signed in 1979 and revised in 2001, the range of South Korean ballistic missiles is limited to 300 kilometers and their payload weight to 500 kilograms.
South Korea wants to revise the agreement to match the range of missiles in the North Korean arsenal. Since 2010, Seoul and Washington have been in talks to revise the missile pact, though few details have been released.
The official declined to comment on reports the two sides could announce an agreement next month. (Yonhap)