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| This aerial photo shows South Korea's easternmost Dokdo Islets, taken on Sept. 2, 2021, eight days ahead of the 68th anniversary of Korea Coast Guard Day. Yonhap |
South Korea issued a "strong" protest Friday over Japan's revised national security strategy repeating its sovereignty claim to the South's easternmost islets of Dokdo, calling for its immediate deletion.
Seoul's foreign and defense ministries called in a senior diplomat and a defense attache from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, respectively, to lodge a formal protest over the claims to Dokdo.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Cabinet approved the new strategy that described the East Sea outcroppings as "our inherent territory." It also endorsed two other key defense documents in a move to bolster its security capabilities.
"Our government strongly protests the inclusion into the National Security Strategy of its wrongful claim to Dokdo, which is our inherent territory historically, geographically and by international law, and calls for the immediate deletion of this," Lim Soo-suk, the spokesperson of Seoul's foreign ministry, said in a commentary.
"The Japanese government must clearly realize that the repetition of the wrongful claims to Dokdo would not be of any help in the efforts for the establishment of the future-oriented South Korea-Japan relationship," he added.
Lim went on to say the Seoul government will respond "sternly" to any "provocation" over the islets.
Dokdo has long been a recurring source of tension between the two neighbors, as Tokyo continues to make the sovereignty claims in its policy papers, public statements and school textbooks.
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