Japan lodges diplomatic protest with South Korea over military exercise
Japan has lodged a diplomatic protest with Seoul over military manoeuvres conducted by the South Korean military around islands that both nations claim sovereignty over.
Japan has lodged a diplomatic protest with Seoul over military manoeuvres conducted by the South Korean military around islands that both nations claim sovereignty over.
The exercises were carried out on Monday off the rocky islands of Dokdo, which are home to an elderly South Korean couple who make a living from fishing and a garrison of South Korean police.
Tokyo insists the islands are "an inherent part of the territory of Japan" and that they should be known as Takeshima.
Six destroyers took part in the manoeuvres, escorting a convoy of other vessels, while F-15 fighter aircraft and other planes carried out patrols. Plans to have troops land from helicopters were cancelled due to poor weather.
The Japanese government expressed its displeasure in a phone call to the South Korean embassy in Tokyo yesterday.
"We are aware of the military exercise conducted by the Republic of Korea near Takeshima on November 24," a ministry spokesman told . "The exercise is unacceptable and extremely regrettable in light of our position of territorial sovereignty over Takeshima," he said. "We immediately expressed a strong protest to the ROK side."
In Seoul, a Defence Ministry spokesman said the drills were "an annual exercise that is held to protect an integral part of our territory from an external force".
Relations between Tokyo and Seoul have been strained in recent years, with the two governments at loggerheads over historical issues dating back to Japan's colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula as well as the sovereignty of the islands.
The exercises took place just days before senior officials of both nations are due to hold talks over issues of bilateral concern, including "comfort women" forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military in the early decades of the last century.
