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LDP policy chief urges Japan-S. Korea joint action on islet row+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, April 23_(Kyodo) _ The top policymaker of the governing Liberal Democratic Party urged Japan and South Korea on Sunday to work to jointly name underwater features near a group of disputed islets in the Sea of Japan. Hidenao Nakagawa, chairman of the LDP Policy Research Council, made the pitch on a television program a day after Japan agreed with South Korea to drop its plan to carry out a maritime survey near the islets known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea. The latest confrontation between the two neighbors erupted when Tokyo decided earlier this month to survey the disputed waters to counter Seoul's move to register Korean names for seafloor topography in the area. After two days of talks in Seoul between senior officials, Japan and South Korea averted a diplomatic crisis Saturday with an accord that sees the former withdraw its survey plan and the latter delay naming efforts. Seoul protested against the planned survey near the small rocky outcrops in the Sea of Japan, which South Korea refers to as the East Sea, in an area both countries claim to be within their exclusive economic zones. Japan maintained it has the right to conduct the survey under international law but kept its survey ships out of the area as the talks continued. |