Pyongyang blasts Japan's Dokdo claim

By Choi Sung-jin

North Korea harshly criticized Tokyo’s claim on Dokdo, Tuesday, calling it the “height of brazenness.”

In his parliamentary address last Friday, Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said the Japanese government would make clear its claims on what Japan calls Takeshima and deal with the issue persistently.

In response, North Korea’s website for overseas propaganda, “Uriminjokkiri” (Among Our People), lashed the Japanese foreign minister, describing his remark as extremely diffident and calling for “crushing Japan’s ploys to take away Dokdo.”

“That Dokdo is the sacred territory of our nation has been proved clearly and sufficiently by historical facts and materials as well as on geographical and legal grounds,” the website said. “Japan’s claim on it has no validity at all and is an absurd sophistry.”

It emphasized that Korea found and realistically managed the volcanic outcrops 1,000 years before Japan did.

“No country in the world could be more brazen and bold-faced than Japan,” it said. “The truth can never change however hard and frequently Japan claims it is their territory.”