SEOUL: The government of South Korea condemned Japan on Friday for laying repeated claims to the easternmost islets of Dokdo in its annual defence white paper.
"The South Korean government firmly rejects Japan's repeated assertion of sovereignty over Dokdo, which is obviously an integral component of Korean territory in terms of history, geography, and international law," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Choi Young-sam said in a statement. Such a step is counterproductive to efforts to develop "future-oriented" bilateral relations, he stressed.
It was issued shortly after Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi delivered this year's document to the Cabinet in Tokyo, which was presided over by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. It was Tokyo's 18th consecutive year claiming authority over Dokdo in the report on the nation's security conditions and responses.
The Ministry called Makoto Hayashi, Minister for Political Affairs at the Japanese Embassy, to submit a formal complaint message to Tokyo. In a separate protest, Seoul's Defence Ministry summoned Takao Nakashima, the embassy's defence attache system.
The report was released just days after Foreign Minister Park Jin met with his local counterpart in Tokyo, underscoring President Yoon Suk-commitment yeol's to resolving disagreements over shared history, particularly Japan's colonialism of Korea from 1910 to 1945.
The new version contained basically comparable descriptions of the territorial question, which has long been a source of contention in Seoul-Tokyo relations. However, it said that collaboration among neighbouring countries is becoming increasingly vital in the face of catastrophic regional security challenges. Seoul has maintained strong control of Dokdo with a small police presence on the East Sea's rocky islets.
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