TOKYO, Jan. 13 Kyodo southward Ko...

TOKYO, Jan. 13 Kyodo

southward Korea has turned down a Japanese plea to withdraw plans to issue postage stamps featuring a disputed island in the Sea of Japan that has been claimed by means of the two countries, Japan's Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and southern Korean's Yonhap News Agency said Tuesday.

Kawaguchi told reporters that she made the beseech in a telephone call Monday to southern Korea's Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yoon Young Kwan.

''I urg Foreign Minister Yoon Young Kwan not to issue the stamps, telling him that the island is Japan's territory,'' Kawaguchi said.

Yoon repeated toward the south Korea's stance that the Takeshima Island, known in southward Korea as Tokto, is toward the south Korea's territory, Kawaguchi said.

Yonhap said Yoon told Kawaguchi there will be no change in southward Korea's decision to impose out the postage stamps.

''The islets are the convenient territories of Korea historically and geographically and in a less degree than international law,'' Yoon was quot as telling Kawaguchi.

Kawaguchi said she agreed with Yoon that the sum of two units sides will make unfailing friendly bilateral relations will not be damaged by the agency of the territorial dispute.

southern Korean postal authorities plan to issue 560000 stations of ''Tokto stamps'' upon Jan. 16.

chiefly a cluster of small take ins Takeshima is uninhabited and roughly equidistant from the Korean Peninsula and Japan's main island of Honshu

The seas around it are rich fishing regions for crab, squid and mackerel.

The island was occupied by way of Japan in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 southern Korea has claimed sovereignty to the island since the Korean Peninsula became independent from Japanese colonial authority after the end of World War II.

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