Seoul protests Tokyo's honouring of 'incorporation' of disputed islets
Seoul furious after more than a dozen Japanese lawmakers commemorate annexation of islands at centre of long-running territorial dispute
South Korea has lodged a protest with Japan over a ceremony held to commemorate the Japanese "incorporation" of islets at the centre of a territorial dispute between the two countries.
The protest to Hisashi Michigami, minister at the Japanese embassy in Seoul, followed the event in Matsue, the capital of the western Japan prefecture of Shimane, on Saturday, attended by Yoshitami Kameoka, parliamentary secretary with the central government's Cabinet Office. More than a dozen lawmakers also attended.
The annual ceremony relating to the islets, known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, has been held by the Shimane prefectural government since 2006, after the local government designated February 22 as Takeshima Day in 2005, 100 years after a Japanese cabinet decision to confirm the country's claimed sovereignty over the islets in the Sea of Japan, which is known as the East Sea in South Korea.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry condemned the event attended by government officials as a "provocation".
"Japan today conducted a provocative action by holding the event making such absurd claims, even attended by central government officials," South Korean foreign ministry spokesperson Cho Tai-young said.