"Seoul to remove 'illegal' base of monument erected on Takeshima islet"

The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbu reports HERE that the South Korean government has said that the circular base for the "Dokdo" monument to the left, which was erected on Liancourt Rocks by Koreans, was constructed illegally and must be removed.

The monument, which was unveiled on August 19, was erected by North Gyeongsang Province without obtaining permission from the central government in Seoul. However, on the back of the monument is engraved with "President Lee Myung-bak, Summer of 2012" in the Korean President's own handwriting. The Korean name from the island is written in Korean on the front of the monument. The Korean central government has said that the part of the monument with the inscription can stay, but the circular base must go.

The Japanese newspaper describes the dispute over the islets as follows:

Known as Dokdo in South Korea, the islands have been occupied by South Korea since the early 1950s despite a lack of legal authorization from either Japan or the United Nations.

I would just add that the United States rejected the Korean government's claim to the islets in an August 10, 1951 letter from US Secretary of State Dean Rusk to the Korean Ambassador, in which the US Secretatry wrote the follow:

As regards the island of Dokdo, otherwise known as Takeshima or Liancourt Rocks, this normally uninhabited rock formation was according to our information never treated as part of Korea and, since about 1905, has been under the jurisdiciton of the Oki Islands Branch of Shimane Prefecture of Japan. The island does not appear ever before to have been claimed by Korea...."