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2ND LD: S. Korea demands Japan retract claim over disputed isles+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)SEOUL, March 30_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: ADDING FOREIGN MINISTER'S EXPRESSION OF REGRET TO JAPANESE ENVOY) South Korea on Thursday demanded that Japan immediately retract its claim over a pair of South Korean-controlled islets known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan. "The (South Korean) government urges the Japanese government to immediately retract its unreasonable and intolerable claim over Dokdo, which is an integral part of our territory," the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry said in a statement. The statement was released to protest the results of the Japanese education ministry's annual textbook screening, released Wednesday. The ministry asked for revisions to references made to the islets to clarify that they are Japanese territory. South Korea "reaffirms it would sternly deal with the Dokdo issue in the context of protecting its own territory," the statement says. Later Thursday, Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon called into his office Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Shotaro Oshima to deliver protests over Japan's claim over the islets. "Any action by the Japanese government that undermines our sovereignty can never be accepted and I express strong regret and protest (about Japan's claim over Dokdo)," Yonhap News Agency quoted Ban as telling Oshima. The ministry statement also denounces the Japanese government for trying to glorify past aggression into neighboring countries and drumming into Japanese youth Japan's territorial claim over the islets that Japan had once forcibly taken over from Korea. It says Japan's claim over the islets is "clear manifestation" of its "whitewashing, distorting and glorifying" of past history, along with visits to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined together with war dead. South Korea and Japan have seen their relations sink to their lowest point after a Japanese local assembly designated 'Takeshima Day" last year. The prefectural assembly of Shimane, in western Japan, passed an ordinance on March 16 last year to designate Feb. 22 as "Takeshima Day." The Shimane government says the ordinance is aimed at raising public awareness about the Feb. 22, 1905, issuance of a prefectural notice that declared the islets as part of Shimane. The prefecture's move unleashed a storm of protests in South Korea, which suffered under Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule. Takeshima, consisting of two small islets and numerous reefs, is located in the Sea of Japan, which South Korea calls the East Sea. South Korea regards the islets as part of its North Gyeongsang Province. |