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Dokdo Islets, located about 215 kilometers off the eastern border of Korea and 90 kilometers east of Ulleung Island.
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Official calls for more visitors to disputed islets
The governor of North Gyeongsang Province says he wants to ease restrictions on visiting the Dokdo islets and to develop Ulleung Island as a major tourist destination. The measures would be part of a plan he calls the "New North Gyeongsang Initiative for the Defense of Dokdo." "Koreans have not had adequate access to Dokdo because the number of visitors is restricted to 400 daily," said governor Kim Kwan-yong. "Korea will be better able to assert its ownership of Dokdo by making access easier, either through the removal of limits on the number of visitors or doubling the limited number of visitors to 800." Japan, which refers to the islets as Takeshima and also claims ownership of them, has yet to respond to the proposal.Kim said the provincial government was also considering a plan to allow tourists visiting Dokdo to stay on the islands, though he did not say for how long. Currently day trips are all that are allowed, though one elderly couple calls one of the islets home. But he did say he wants to make it possible for fishing crews to be based there on a long term basis. "Building a fishing base would also help assert ‘actual control,’ " over the small islets in the East Sea, he said. Ulleung Island, said the governor, is to be made into "Korea’s Hawai’i." That means Ulleung needs an airstrip, he said, and a road that follows the full extent of its coastline. He also proposed the building of a "Dokdo Marine Research Center" in Ulleung, launching by the year 2008 ships that would be responsible for governmental management of Dokdo. Kim also proposed naming an "ambassador" to Dokdo in order to promote awareness about the islets. "Defending Korea’s territory demands that we develop Ulleung and Dokdo," he said. "As the governor responsible for Dokdo, I am going to use all the means at my disposal." Lee Wi-su of the Cultural Heritage Administration, the government body that oversees the management of cultural, natural, and historical artifacts and the survival of traditional artistic skills that are passed down from generation to generation, has doubts about the plan. "Everyone is entitled to have ideas about developing Dokdo, but both islets are currently designated as a site that has to be preserved because of its natural value," he said. "The potential environmental damage has to be taken into consideration." He said that any move to ease restrictions on the number of people who can visit Dokdo should come only after the province finds ways to preserve the natural environment there, but that "if the country wants to," his agency would consider talking to the national police and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, which share responsibility for the islets’ administration.
