Dokdo Research Institute Opens
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The Northeast Asian History Foundation, under the wing of the education ministry, Thursday opened the ``Dokdo Research Institute'' to carry through systematic research on the easternmost islets.
During the opening ceremony at the institute's office in central Seoul, Kim Yong-deok, chairman of the Foundation said ``We will develop long-term strategies and measures in cooperation with related government bodies to counter Japan's repeated claims to the islets.''
Kim Hyun-soo, an international marine law professor at Inha University, will head the institute. Not only domestic experts but foreign scholars, including Paul Hensel, a territory dispute expert from the University of North Texas and Anders Karlsson, chief of the Korean studies institute at the University of London will join the research institute.
President Lee Myung-bak said that his administration would sternly react to Japan's repeated claims to the islets.
``As President, I will cope with Dokdo and other territorial issues with firm determination,'' Lee said at a meeting with participants in the ceremony to open the institute.
Lee said that both the government and private sector should approach the Dokdo issue with strategic and long-term views.
Among the participants in the opening ceremony were Ahn Byung-man, minister of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Shin Kak-soo, vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Kim Kwan-yong, governor of the North Gyeongsnag Province.