South Korea prints 15,000 brochures to promote claim to East Sea islands disputed with Japan

South Korea has published thousands of new brochures to promote its claim to a pair of islands disputed by Japan, for distribution at diplomatic missions and international schools next month, a move that could further sour ties between the US allies.

About 15,000 copies of the brochure, published in Korean and English and titled "The East Sea and Dokdo Islets Seen in Maps and Photos," will be distributed next month at schools run by the South Korean embassies abroad and at private international schools for children of Korean parents.

Seoul controls the islands in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) which it calls Dokdo. They are known in Japan as Takeshima.

The row over the islands intensified after then-South Korean President Lee Myung-bak made a surprise visit to them in 2012.

According to the Education Ministry, they will be the first publicity material that extensively describes the history of the small outcroppings, which lie in waters between the two countries, for audiences abroad, though a simpler version had previously been circulated.

The release of the news came yesterday as dozens of South Korean civic group members protested in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul to denounce an annual ceremony held in the Japanese prefecture of Shimane to stress Japan's claim to the South Korean-controlled islets.