Japanese authorities have decided not to allow a right-wing organization to erect stone monuments of “Takeshima” in front of the Korean Embassy in Tokyo and its consulate general in Osaka, Yonhap News and SBS TV reported, quoting official sources in Seoul. The reports revealed that Japanese officials intimated their Korean counterparts about the decision which is inadequate to be officially announced.

A Japanese group called “the Society of Citizens Recognizing No Privileges of Foreigners in Japan” had asked Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan governments late last year to approve its plan to establish the monuments near the offices of Korean missions in Japan to manifest Japan’s territorial rights over Dokdo, a group of islets in the East Sea that the Japanese call Takeshima. The Japanese action came after a coalition of civic groups in Korea erected the “Statue of Peace” in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to remember the tragedies of the Korean women recruited by the Japanese during World War II to provide sexual services for the Japanese Imperial Army.

The reported refusal of the Japanese civic group’s countermove could have been intended to prompt similarly concessional steps in Korea by the authorities here, thereby seeking the removal of the Statue of Peace, which is of an innocent young girl in traditional dress. Still it is fortunate that the Japanese local authorities are discreet enough to see the impropriety of the Takeshima monument plan.

The Statue of Peace sits at the place where the surviving former “comfort women” and their sympathizers have held weekly demonstrations every Wednesday calling for the Japanese government to accept state-level responsibility for the abuses committed during wartime.

The perennial disputes between Korea and Japan over historical issues, including sex slavery, the Yasukuni Shrine and one-sided descriptions in textbooks, as well as the territorial spat over Dokdo, are unlikely to be resolved easily, but any move to stimulate antagonism between the two peoples should be discouraged. The Japanese group’s attempt to counter the comfort women issue with an allegation the Korea was unjustly occupying the East Sea islets lacked logical relevance not to mention the preponderance of the claim.

We only hope for no repetition of such insensitivity that ignores the earnest and natural efforts of the two countries’ people to promote eternal peace and cooperation across the Korea Strait.