Japan Mobilized Supervisory Ships to the Kurils

Korea and Japan will meet for the final negotiation for the fishing operation, which will begin in the Southern Kuril Islands from July 15, in the Government Central Complex today.

Japan requested Korea to acknowledge the Southern Kuril Islands as Japanese EZZ and to obtain permission from the Japanese government for the fishing operation. However, the Korean government rejected it.

A government official said that ``when accepting the Japanese offer, Korea will be unnecessarily caught up in the territorial disputes on the Northern four islands between Russia and Japan. Basically, the Russia-Japan agreement on this issue is the pre-requisite of the Korea-Japan negotiation about this matter.

Korea will deliver its intention to start the fishing operation in the area of the Kuril Islands from July 15 if Japan would not provide realistic alternative fishing areas in the negotiation meeting today.

Meanwhile, Japanese Maritime Affairs Ministry decided to deploy supervisory ships to the Southern Kuril Islands to prohibit the Korean fishing ships from the fishing operation. Three supervisory ships will arrive at the fishing area and demand to stop the fishing operation of the Korean fishing ships by the leaflets and megaphones.

However, since the Japanese ships do not have right to control the fishing operation in the open waters and the Russian border patrols may stop the activities of the Japanese ships in the Russian territorial waters, the Japanese ships do not seem to clash with the Korean fishing ships.

Boo Hyung-Kwon bookum90@donga.com