South Korea has lodged a formal protest with Japan over a government linked ceremony marking “Takeshima Day,” a move Seoul says amounts to an unjust assertion of Tokyo’s claim to a group of disputed islets.
The event took place in Shimane Prefecture a Japanese region that marks February 22 each year to commemorate its claim to the tiny islands known in Japan as Takeshima and in South Korea as Dokdo.
Seoul’s foreign ministry criticized the ceremony and particularly the attendance of a senior Japanese official saying it reinforces a territorial claim that South Korea firmly rejects. The islands are currently controlled by South Korea which says they are its sovereign territory based on history geography and international law.
South Korea summoned a top Japanese diplomat in Seoul and lodged a strong objection urging Tokyo to abolish the annual event immediately. Officials in Seoul said the ceremony’s continuation undermines efforts to build stable and forward looking relations.
The dispute over these rocky islets has been a longstanding flashpoint between the two neighbors rooted in historical grievances especially Japan’s colonial rule over the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945 and continues to strain diplomatic ties.
Beyond the symbolic contention the waters around the islands are rich in fishing resources and believed to lie over potential natural gas hydrate deposits adding economic stakes to the territorial disagreement.
Despite periodic diplomatic efforts and shared strategic concerns in the region such gestures and commemorations tend to reignite public and governmental tensions underscoring how deeply symbolic territorial issues remain between Seoul and Tokyo.
