SAEDNEWS: South Korea on Sunday protested a Japanese government event commemorating a cluster of disputed islands between the two countries, calling the move an unjust assertion of sovereignty over its territory.
South Korea’s foreign ministry strongly objected to the Takeshima Day event held by Japan’s Shimane Prefecture and the attendance of a senior Japanese government official, urging Japan to immediately abolish the ceremony, Reuters reported.
The tiny islets—known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, which administers them—have long been a source of tension between the two neighbors. Relations remain strained by disputes rooted in Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
“Dokdo is clearly South Korea’s sovereign territory historically, geographically, and under international law,” the ministry said, calling on Japan to abandon what it described as groundless claims and to face history with humility.
Seoul summoned a top Japanese diplomat to the foreign ministry in Seoul to lodge a formal protest.
A spokesperson at Japan’s foreign ministry said no one was available on Sunday to comment. Calls to the Prime Minister’s Office went unanswered. The Japanese government sent a vice-minister from the Cabinet Office, rather than a cabinet minister, to the ceremony.
South Korea has repeatedly objected to Japan’s territorial claims over the islands, including a protest last Friday over comments by Japan’s foreign minister during a parliamentary address asserting Tokyo’s sovereignty over the islets.
The territory lies in fertile fishing grounds and may sit atop enormous deposits of natural gas hydrate, which could be worth billions of dollars, Seoul has said.
