Korea considering sending back Japan PM's letter over Dokdo

Korea is considering turning away the protest letter Japan's prime minister wrote to President Lee Myung-bak over his visit to the easternmost Korean islets of Dokdo and his remarks about Japan's emperor, officials said Wednesday.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's letter was handed to Seoul's Embassy in Tokyo last Friday, describing as regrettable Lee's Aug. 10 visit to Dokdo and his remarks that Japan's Emperor Akihito should apologize for Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule if he wishes to visit Korea.

Japan's government made public the letter's contents soon afterwards, a move that has been widely denounced in Korea as a diplomatic gaffe and bolstered the impression that the letter is a political move designed mainly for the domestic audience.

South Korea has been studying what to do with the letter. Options under consideration include ignoring the letter, turning it away and sending a response letter rebutting Japan's argument over Dokdo, a cluster of East Sea islets that Tokyo has claimed as its territory.

Official said they are carefully studying the good and bad points of each option, but the idea of sending the letter back to Japan's government is more favored than other options.

"We've put together opinions of international law and diplomacy experts, and a majority of the views were that it is wrong in the first place to accept and respond to the protest letter from Prime Minister Noda," a senior presidential official said.

Noda's letter described that Lee landed on Takeshima, which is used to refer to Dokdo in Japan, the official said, stressing the letter is factually incorrect because it is Dokdo, not Takeshima, that Lee visited.

"It is unreasonable to respond to what is not fact," the official said. "Though no decision has been reached yet, we're seriously weighing possible controversies as well as merits and demerits depending on whether we send a response or not."

Presidential spokesman Park Jeong-ha said a decision will be made in the near future.

On Tuesday, Japan's government made a formal proposal to South Korea that the two countries should jointly take the issue of Dokdo to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). South Korea immediately rejected the offer, saying it is "not worth consideration."

Japan has long laid claims to Dokdo in school textbooks, government reports and other ways, stoking enmity in Korea against the former colonial ruler.

Koreans see those claims as amounting to denying Korea's rights because the country regained independence from the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule and reclaimed sovereignty over its territory, which includes Dokdo and many other islands around the Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap)