Seoul: South Korea should resume the dialogue channel with Japan on the delimitation of sea boundaries under the relevant U.N. framework, a senior Seoul diplomat has said, as a bilateral agreement on continental shelf boundaries expired earlier this year. Second Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jina made the remark at an international conference on Tuesday, saying that the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) serves as an essential framework governing South Korea's maritime relations.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Kim emphasized the importance of restoring dialogue with Japan on maritime boundary issues within the UNCLOS framework at the conference co-hosted by the foreign ministry and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. She highlighted the need for cooperation, mutual understanding, and solutions based on international law in the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula, where maritime entitlements overlap with neighboring countries.

Kim's remarks seem to reference the joint development zone (JDZ) agreement between South Korea and Japan concerning the continental shelf boundaries in the East China Sea, which expired in June this year. The JDZ agreement, signed in 1974, aimed at joint exploitation of a continental shelf block believed to contain significant deposits of oil and other natural resources.

However, after the UNCLOS came into force in 1994 with criteria favoring Japan in determining continental shelf boundaries by distance, Japan showed less enthusiasm about advancing the agreement. This shift placed most of the JDZ area under Japan's exclusive economic zone. South Korea had engaged in regular maritime talks with Japan until 2010; however, the dialogue channel stalled due to a dispute over wartime history issues. In contrast, Seoul maintains a similar dialogue platform with China.

Seoul and Tokyo conducted a working-level discussion specifically on the continental shelf in September last year, but the talks did not progress beyond broad and general discussions.