Koreans ask U.S. gov’t to use ‘East Sea’

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Nearly 110,000 ethnic Koreans in the United States petitioned the U.S. government Tuesday to refer to the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan as “East Sea” in addition to “Sea of Japan,” their representatives said.

A Korean resident group in Virginia and other representatives said in a press conference in Falls Church, Virginia, that they submitted the petition, signed by 108,300, to the White House.

The request was made one day after the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) opened a five-day conference in Monaco, where South Korea and Japan were divided over how to name the sea.

On Thursday, the resident group sent letters to the members of the IHO, except Japanese and North Koreans, asking them to support the usage of the name “East Sea.”

During Tuesday’s press conference, the representatives vowed “to keep making an endeavor to gain ‘our East Sea.’”

The Virginia group launched the campaign in 2007. The U.S. state’s Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill in 2014 requiring school textbooks to concurrently use “East Sea” and “Sea of Japan” to refer to the sea between the two countries.

Yonhap