Foreign minister says Seoul will deal with Tokyo's Dokdo claim on Olympic map 'as strongly as possible'
Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo / Korea Times file
Seoul will address Tokyo's renewed claim to sovereignty of South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo on the Tokyo Olympic website as strongly as possible, Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong said Friday.
Japan described Dokdo as part of its territory on a map posted on the Tokyo Olympic website to show the route of the torch relay, its latest claiming of the islets.
The move has prompted mounting calls to revise it and concerns that the inclusion of the islets could undermine the Olympic spirit of peace free from politics.
"We will not tolerate (Japan's) wrongful actions relating to Dokdo," Chung told members of parliament's foreign affairs committee at the National Assembly. The government plans to deal with the matter "as strongly as possible," the minister added.
In a Facebook post Wednesday, former Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun called for the deletion of Dokdo from the map and called on the government to mobilize "all means," including the possible boycott of the Olympic Games, set to take place from July 23 to Aug. 8, should Japan refuse to remove it.
Rep. Lee Nak-yon, former chairman of the ruling Democratic Party, also said the inclusion of Dokdo on the Olympic map was "unacceptable."
Dokdo has long been a recurring source of tension between the two neighbors, as Tokyo continues to lay claim to the East Sea islets in its policy papers, public statements and school textbooks.
South Korea has been in effective control of Dokdo, with a small police detachment, since its liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule. (Yonhap)