Foreign Ministry demands retraction of top Japanese diplomat's Dokdo claim

Korea demanded the Japanese foreign minister retract Japan's claims on the Dokdo islets in her speech to Japan's Diet on Tuesday..

Japan's Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa delivers a speech during a plenary session of Japan's lower house in Tokyo on Tuesday. [AFP/YONHAP]

Korea demanded the Japanese foreign minister retract comments laying claim to the Dokdo islets for Japan made in a speech to Japan's Diet on Tuesday.

"Historically, geographically and under international law, Dokdo is Korea's inherent territory," the Foreign Ministry in Seoul said in a statement. "We hereby strongly protest the Japanese government's claims and demand an immediate retraction."

In her speech to Japan's parliament on Tuesday, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa reportedly called the islets "Japanese territory under international law."

Kamikawa is not an exception among Japanese foreign ministers in laying the claim on the islets, called Takeshima in Japan, in their annual speech to the parliament. Her predecessors have done it for 11 years.

The Foreign Ministry in Seoul, alluding to improved ties between Seoul and Tokyo in recent years, said that Japan's repeated claims on the islets are not helping the two countries "build a future-oriented relationship.

"We will respond resolutely to any provocation from Japan regarding the islets," it said.

Dokdo has long been a thorn in relations between Korea and Japan, with the latter claiming the islets in policy documents, public statements, and school textbooks.

Japan’s defense white paper released last July referred to the islets as one of Japan’s “unresolved” territorial issues.

The Korean government maintains that no disputes exist over the Dokdo islets, which are historically, geographically and under international law an integral part of Korean territory.

The Yoon Suk Yeol government has sought improvement of ties with Japan in recent years, including through its proposal of a Korean company-sponsored compensation deal for Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor.

Despite public backlash on the proposal, the Yoon government has since been able to normalize the intelligence security sharing pact with Japan and unravel trade spats between the two countries as Tokyo lifted export restrictions on Korea.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]