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Seoul's Foreign Ministry summoned the second-highest official at the Japanese Embassy on Friday in protest after Japan's Ministry of Defense issued its annual defense review which describes the disputed islets, called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, as the country's territory.
"We strongly protest Japan's description of Dokdo as its territory in the defense white paper," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "The government calls on Japan to take immediate measures to correct it," it said, stressing there is no doubt that the island is "an integral part of South Korean territory historically and legally."
Seoul's Defense Ministry also called in the Japanese Embassy's defense attaché to warn that South Korea could cut military ties with Japan in protest.
"We made it clear that Japan's wrong behavior will become a great obstacle to the future military relationship between South Korea and Japan," said Song Bong-heon, the international affairs chief at the ministry.
Civic groups and social organizations also staged rallies in front of the Japanese embassy in central Seoul in protest against the defense document description.
The Defense of Japan 2008, endorsed by the Cabinet on Friday, says the dispute over ownership of the islets remains unsettled, backing the campaigns of Japan’s Foreign Ministry to challenge South Korea's control over the islet.
"Japan also confronts unresolved territorial disputes over the Northern Territories (controlled by Russia) and Takeshima, both of which are integral parts of Japanese territory," the paper said.
Japan's defense white paper has laid territorial claim to the islets since 2005. But this year's description is more sensitive as it comes less than two months after Japan's Education Ministry announced a plan to describe the islets as belonging to Japan in its school textbooks, which sparked angry protests from South Korea.
In protest, South Korea temporarily recalled its ambassador to Tokyo. The envoy returned to his post early last month after a three-week stay in Seoul. Prime Minister Han Seung-soo visited the island as the highest-level official ever to travel there and staged a military drill near the islet, drawing criticism from Tokyo.
President Lee Myung-bak, in his Aug. 15 Liberation Day address, expressed his resolute will to fend off the Japanese territorial claim to Dokdo, saying it is "presidential responsibility to secure our territorial control."
In a bid to bolster its control over Dokdo, South Korea plans to build a solar power plant on the island and step up efforts to develop energy resources and protect the environment around it.
The Dokdo issue is highly sensitive to South Koreans who still harbor deep-rooted bitterness against Japan for its 1910-45 colonial occupation.
Dokdo, a cluster of two main islets and dozens of attached rocks and reefs that lies about halfway between the Korean peninsula and Japan's largest island of Honshu, has long been a source of dispute between the two neighbors.
The new round of a territorial row comes amid concerns in Seoul that a brash, right-leaning former foreign minister may become Japan's next leader, which could add to uncertainties in the future of their bilateral relations.
Taro Aso, who has run for the ruling party president, is widely considered the front-runner to replace outgoing Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Aso has supported visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japanese war criminals, and played a leading role in whitewashing Japan's wartime atrocities, according to Seoul officials.
South Korea, which was victimized by Japan's war of aggression in the early parts of the past century, considers any Japanese leaders' Yasukuni-related activities as moves to revive Tokyo's militarism and gloss over atrocities committed during its wartime history.
Seoul officials said that South Korea has not yet decided whether to take part in a three-way summit with China and Japan, citing the territorial dispute with Tokyo. According to Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and public broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai, Japan has proposed to stage the three-party summit on Sept. 21 in the western Japanese city of Kobe.
The deepening dispute between Seoul and Tokyo has raised concerns that worsening ties between the two countries may undermine U.S.-led efforts to curb nuclear proliferation in Northeast Asia. Seoul and Tokyo are Washington's key Asian allies and important partners in ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.
