S. Korea protests Japan’s latest claims on disputed islets

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South Korea on Wednesday strongly protested against Japan’s territorial claims of disputed Dokdo islets in the country’s new education guidelines.

The foreign ministry of South Korea also called in a Japanese diplomat to lodge complaints about what it sees as “repeated” and “unjustified” territorial claims, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

Seoul’s foreign ministry urged in a statement that Japan should immediately withdraw its education guidelines.

South Korea conducted biannual military drills on the disputed Dokdo islets, known as Takeshima in Japan on June 15, 2017. /VCG Photo

Japan’s education ministry announced earlier in the day its education guidelines for elementary and middle school, in which it refers to the Dokdo islets is a part of Japan's territory which South Korea illegally occupy. The guideline will be gradually implemented from the year 2020.

Japanese nationalists march with banners and flags to protest South Korea to return disputed islets on Feb 22, 2017. /VCG PHoto

The South Korean foreign ministry said the newly released guidelines will "worsen the already frayed diplomatic relations" between the countries as they have been at odds over a controversial deal reached in 2015 on Japan's wartime sexual slavery of Korean women.

The Dokdo islets, also known as Takeshima in Japanese, is a set of rocky islets lying halfway between South Korea and Japan.

Japan included the islets as part of its territories in 1910 when the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula started. They were then returned to South Korea when the peninsula liberated from the Japanese colonial rule in 1945.