NEW YORK: South Korea and Japan will square off over the name of the vast sea separating them at an international conference on geographic names next week in Berlin.

Called Sea of Japan by the Japanese and the East Sea by the Koreans, it has been a source of conflict brewing quietly in diplomatic conferences for decades.

High-ranking government officials from 69 countries will meet at the Eighth UN Conference on the Standardization of Geographic Names in Berlin from Aug 27 to Sept 5. At almost the same time also in Berlin, the UN Group of Experts on Geographic Names will hold its meeting. Korean and Japanese diplomats will attend both.

The South Korean ambassador to the United Nations, Sun Joun-yung, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that many governments have come to accept both names or leave the sea without a name in maps until a solution is found.

The South Korean position is reflected by a decision of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), which is drafting a new publication called “Names and Limits of Oceans and Seas”, to leave blank the pages related to the body of water under dispute until geographic societies can settle it.

“I don’t expect the Berlin conference to achieve any tangible results on this issue since the Japanese government is not ready to make any compromise at this moment,” Sun said. “But we expect growing support for our position that both names be simultaneously used in all maps and cartographical publications.”

The last “Names and Limits of Oceans and Seas” came out in 1953 and is outdated. IHO had prepared two more since 1953 without publishing them because of disputes on geographic names. It is now preparing a fourth one, and has asked geographic organizations to settle the Sea of Japan/East Sea dispute.

In a memo to governments attending the Berlin conference, IHO said the issue is a “highly sensitive political matter and is not a technical one”, and it appealed to them to resolve it so the book can be published.

South Korea, since becoming a United Nations member in 1991, has quietly campaigned to remove the name Sea of Japan in favour of the East Sea. A major reason is that it wants to be true to its national anthem, which begins with “the waters of the East Sea, the mountain of Peaktu”.

The name Sea of Japan has been used since the Russo-Japanese war a century ago, and Japan has refused to accept any change.

Various names have been given to the sea, and published, since the 18th century. It has been known as the East Sea or Oriental Sea because it is east of the East Asian continent. It is also known as the Sea of Japan and Sea of Korea. Some European maps dating back to the 18th century carried the names Sea of Korea or East Sea.

In recent years, some publications and television networks like CNN have preferred to leave the sea without a name while National Geographic magazine uses both until an agreement is reached by South Korea and Japan and by the UN body charged with standardizing geographic names.—Dawn/dpa