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S.Korea urges Japan to stop territorial claims on disputed island

Xinhua, March 18, 2016 Adjust font size:

South Korea on Friday urged Japan to stop territorial claims on a disputed island, called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, lying halfway between the two countries.

Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement that the Japanese government approved high school textbooks involving distorted historical views by making unjust claims on Dokdo islets that are South Korea's indigenous territory historically, geographically and according to international laws.

The ministry strongly deplored the approval, urging Japan to immediately revise them. The ministry reportedly plans to summon a senior diplomat in Japanese embassy in Seoul to protest against the textbooks.

Japan approved 27 social textbooks for high school freshmen that claim Takeshima is Japan's sovereign territory and South Korea illicitly occupies the island. The remaining eight textbooks didn't include such claims. The textbooks will be used from next year.

In 2015, Japan approved all of 18 history and geography textbooks for middle school students that include territorial claims on Takeshima. In 2014, all of textbooks for senior elementary school students were approved to claim sovereignty over the island.

With the textbooks approved, relations between South Korea and Japan are expected to get frosty again. The Seoul-Tokyo ties showed signs of thawing due to an agreement reached in late 2015 on the comfort women issue, an euphemism for former sex slaves forced to serve in the Japanese military brothels during World War II.

The Seoul ministry said Japan should not forget a fact that educating a right history is Japan's grave responsibility for neighboring countries having suffered from Japan's war of aggression as well as younger Japanese generation.

Seoul urged Tokyo to show a sincere act to make efforts at opening a new chapter of South Korea-Japan relations by squarely facing up to the truth of history.

South Korea has claimed that the Dokdo island was forcefully incorporated into Japanese territory before and during the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule of the Korean peninsula. Seoul retrieved the island after its liberation from the Japanese rule. Endit