SEOUL, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- South Korea has proposed renaming the waters with Japan as the "Sea of Peace" to resolve their territorial dispute, Seoul officials said Monday.
President Roh Moo-hyun made the proposal informally at a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Vietnam in November, according to Roh's office.
The name of the waters between the two neighbors has long been a constant source of diplomatic disputes between them. Seoul calls it the "East Sea" and Tokyo the "Sea of Japan."
The naming dispute also involves a small island that lies about halfway between the Korean peninsula and Japan's largest islet, Honshu. The island is called Dokdo in Korea, and Takeshima in Japan.
In the November summit, Roh proposed calling the disputed waters "Sea of Peace," "Sea of Friendship" or "Sea of Reconciliation."
"Roh suggested South Korea and Japan give up their respective names for the disputed waters and find a new mutually satisfactory name to resolve the long-running dispute," a presidential official told reporters.
"But it was not a formal proposal," he said. No further discussions took place between the two countries as Japan has not responded yet.
