Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: The deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy Naoki Kumagai was summoned on Monday by South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, and sought an immediate retraction of the remarks on Dokdo, local Yonhap News Agency reported.
On Monday, Foreign Minister of Japan Yoshimasa Hayashi renewed his country’s claim to Dokdo during a policy speech during a parliamentary session.
Dokdo refers to a group of islands that are a bone of contention between the two countries, Japan refers to the islands as Takeshima and claims them as its own.
In a statement, South Korea’s foreign ministry stated that for ties to be future-oriented, wrongful claims should not be repeated.
Presently, the two countries are trying to make progress to rejig strained mutual ties, however, even then renewed claims on Dokdo were issued by Japan.
Both countries are allies of the US yet mutual relations have taken a hit because of Tokyo’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
Disputed islets bone of contention between South Korea and Japan
A South Korean court, in 2018, asked Japanese companies to compensate victims of Japan’s forced labor during World War II.
Tokyo rejected the court’s ruling and asserted that the issue had been resolved in the past.
The current South Korean administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol is making efforts to upgrade relations with Tokyo. This is a likely development as both countries are facing a growing threat from Pyongyang. President Yoon took office in May 2022. Yoon met Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida for the first in November 2022 at a Cambodia event. At that time, both agreed to iron out all pending issues between the two countries.
