Left Flank

The brinksmanship Pyongyang practices with nukes is far more dangerous than the mini-roar of Seoul's islet stunts.

The South Korean government strongly denounced Japan Friday for describing the islets of Dokdo in the East Sea as its own territory in this year's defense White Paper again, the fourth consecutive time in a row.

The Ministry of National Defense said it would cut high-level ties with Japan's military authorities. It called in a military attache to the Japanese Embassy in Seoul Friday to protest the description.

``We urged Japan to take corrective measures on Dokdo, which is South Korea's territory from the perspectives of geography, history and international laws,'' Song Bong-heon, head of the ministry's international cooperation bureau, said. ``We also assured the Japanese military attache that Japan's claim to Dokdo is a move to justify its colonial act in the past and will hamper the future-oriented development of South Korea-U.S. relations.''

Song said working-level exchanges between the South Korean and Japanese militaries, such as goodwill visits by military personnel and navy ships, would remain intact but reconsider high-level exchanges ``seriously.''

«Seriously»? A South Korean bureaucrat can seriously use that word without falling down in laughter? Washington might be forcing the North Koreans to pay double for de-listing them from the terrorism list, but Seoul has constructed an entire foreign policy out of extortion. And, what is this mention of «international law» now?

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