Lawmakers postpone parliamentary meeting on Dokdo due to bad weather

(ATTN: CHANGES headline, lead; UPDATES with details on weather condition, comments from committee chairman in 2-6 paras)
SEOUL, Aug. 11 (Yonhap) -- A parliamentary committee has postponed a meeting planned on the easternmost islets of Dokdo at the last moment due to bad weather, officials said, amid heightened diplomatic tensions between Seoul and Tokyo over the islets.
About 10 lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties had planned to hold a committee meeting on Dokdo on Friday in a display of resolution to counter recent attempts by Japan to lay claim to Dokdo in the East Sea.
Later Thursday, the committee decided to call off the planned meeting as the state weather agency forecasted that Friday's weather on the rocky outcroppings would not be fit for a helicopter landing, Rep. Kang Chang-il of the Democratic Party (DP) said.
"We will pick another date in August to hold the meeting on Dokdo as the parliamentary committee initially agreed," Kang said in a briefing at the National Assembly. He did not give a specific date for the next meeting.
The committee had already put off the meeting twice in April and May due to bad weather conditions.
If held, it will be the first parliamentary meeting to be held there in Korean history. The Dokdo committee earlier agreed to discuss Tokyo's history textbooks and 2011 defense paper and adopt a resolution condemning its repeated territorial claims to the Korean territory.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan voiced regret on Wednesday over the planned meeting by South Korean lawmakers on Dokdo.
Dokdo, which lies closer to South Korea in the body of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, has long been a thorn in relations between the two countries.
Diplomatic tensions between South Korea and Japan have recently risen over a renewed Japanese push to strengthen its territorial claim to the rocky islets in the East Sea.
Four lawmakers from Japan's conservative opposition Liberal Democratic Party were banned early last week from traveling to a South Korean island close to Dokdo.
South Korea also summoned a senior Japanese embassy official last week and protested Japan's 2011 defense white paper, which renewed its territorial claim to Dokdo.
ejkim@yna.co.kr