Seoul/Tokyo, July 22 (UNI) The South Korean government condemned Japan on Friday for laying repeated claims to the easternmost islets of Dokdo in its annual defense white paper. “(The government) strongly protests against Japan’s repetition of its sovereignty claim over Dokdo, clearly an integral part of the Korean territory in terms of history, geography, and international law, and urges it to immediately scrap it,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Choi Young-sam said in a statement. Such a move is of no help to efforts for building “future-oriented” bilateral relations, he added. It was issued shortly after Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi reported this year’s document to the Cabinet, presided over by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo.
It marked the 18th consecutive year for Tokyo to claim its sovereignty over Dokdo in the paper on the nation’s security conditions and its responses. In Seoul, the Ministry summoned Makoto Hayashi, Minister for Political Affairs at the Japanese Embassy, to deliver a formal protest message to Tokyo, Yonhap news agency reported.
