Q In South Korea, the leadership there is very concerned and upset about the U.S. Agency for Geographic Names changing the designation of a small group of islands to undesignated. Has there been any thought to revisiting that? Have you all addressed that, given that the President is going to be there in a few days?

MR. WILDER: We were contacted by the South Korean government at very high levels and asked to re-look at this question. The President directed Secretary Rice to check into this and see exactly what did happen with this change of designation. It was decided after that review that the change in designation was not warranted at this time. And so that database is now being restored to where it was prior to this change in designation, I think which occurred about seven days ago on the database.

We regret that this change in designation was perceived by South Koreans as some sort of change in our policy. Let me be very clear that our policy on this territorial dispute has been firm and consistent since 1952, and that is, we do not take a position on this territorial dispute; that we believe that South Korea and Japan need to work diplomatically to resolve this issue. But it is their issue to resolve.

seen at 09:00, 30 July in Whitehouse Press Briefings. Email this to a friend.
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