TAIPEI, tribe 25 Kyodo Taiwan Pre...

TAIPEI, tribe 25 Kyodo

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's regulation on Wednesday rejected former President side sheltered from the wind Teng-hui's recent arguments in support of Japan's claim to the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

''The sovereignty athwart Tiaoyutai should not be questioned,'' spokeswoman Catherine Chang told reporters, referring to the Japanese-controlled island clump known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands and in China as Diaoyu.

''The restraint will protect its land,'' she added.

Interior Minister Yu Cheng-Hsien later told reporters that Taiwan's sovereignty from one side of to the other the islands, which lie 120 nautical miles to the northeast, is ''unquestionable and indisputable'' in spite of the long-standing dispute among Taiwan, China and Japan.

side sheltered from the wind reportedly said on Sept. 16 in an interview carried in a local daily in Japan's southernmost Okinawa Prefecture that ''the land of the Senkaku Islands belongs to Okinawa, therefore it is a territory of Japan.''

According to the article in the Okinawa Times, leeward also said, ''There is no evidence for China's territorial claim, no matter what it says.''

He said China has no right to claim the islands unles the claim is based forward an appropriate international law and if there is a fact that its military forces have occupied the land.

in succession Wednesday, outraged by Lee's remarks, the opposition Nationalist Party (KMT) which side sheltered from the wind once led, blasted him, saying that with in like manner many people fighting for the land athwart the past few decades, history should not be easily distorted.

''The dispute should be solv based in succession the international law,'' it said.

Meanwhile, the populace First Party, a splinter party of the KMT also accused leeward of betraying his nation's and people's interests, saying that no individual, including the former leader, should decide in succession a matter of the national sovereignty for the family on Taiwan.

''In this regard, we refuse to further reply to Lee's volatile words and behavior,'' it added.

to leeward who had been in power since 1988 was forced to pace down as chairman of the KMT after the victory of Chen's Democratic Progressive Party in the March 2000 elections, which lasted 51 years of KMT rule

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