South Korea's maritime ministry said Friday it plans to set up a maritime police station on an island near Dokdo within this year in a bid to beef up security for the country's easternmost islets.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said the government plans to establish a maritime police station on Ulleung Island in the East Sea, an island 90 kilometers west of Dokdo, in 2013 in an effort to strengthen policing on Dokdo and surrounding waters. Maritime Minister Yoon Jin-sook reported the ministry's 2013 policy goals to President Park Geun-hye as the former oceanographer was formally appointed on Wednesday as the minister of oceans and fisheries.
The ministry also reported plans to permanently station researchers on a currently unmanned research facility on Ieodo, a submerged island that lies within the overlapping exclusive economic zones of South Korea and China, as a way of strengthening the country's control of the island.
Under the international maritime law, a submerged rock cannot be claimed a territory by any country, but South Korea effectively controls the island, building the maritime research station in 2003.
The ministry also plans to designate so-called maritime special economic zones as it believes that synergetic impacts will increase if maritime-related industries including shipbuilding are clustered near ports.
The ministry said that companies in the zones, if designated, will be able to receive tax benefits and other incentives. The government aims to draw up a bill on the designation by the second half of this year.
The maritime ministry said that the envisioned police station will be given a stronger security role on Dokdo, to which Japan has frequently laid sovereignty claims.
The move comes as Dokdo, a group of rocky outcroppings in the East Sea between South Korea and Japan, has been a source of diplomatic tension between the two countries for years. Tensions further flared up after former President Lee Myung-bak made an unprecedented visit there on Aug. 10, 2012.
The maritime ministry was revived five years after Lee's administration scrapped its predecessor in February 2008 when he took office. (Yonhap News)
