SEOUL: South Korea 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.
In a statement, the foreign ministry said it strongly objected to the Takeshima Day event held by Japan’s Shimane prefecture and to the attendance of a senior Japanese government official, urging Japan to immediately abolish the ceremony.
The tiny islets, known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, which controls them, have long been a source of tension between the two neighbours, whose relations remain strained by disputes rooted in Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.