THE country has lodged protest over Japan’s renewed territorial claims to the disputed islets, called Dokdo here and Takeshima in Japan.
The South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement that the government strongly protested against the Japanese government’s repeated inclusion of unjust sovereignty claims over Dokdo, which is clearly an integral part of South Korea’s territory historically, geographically and under international law, in its diplomatic bluebook released earlier in the day.
The ministry urged Tokyo to immediately retract such claims, making it clear that the Japanese government’s unjust claims over Dokdo will have no impact on South Korea’s sovereignty over the islets.
It added that Seoul will continue to respond firmly to any of Japan’s provocations over Dokdo.
Dokdo is a couple of rocky outcrops lying halfway between the two countries, which were forcibly incorporated into Imperial Japan during its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea restored sovereignty over the islets after the peninsula’s liberation from colonisation.
Seoul has since maintained a small police detachment there. — Xinhua
