A National Assembly committee Friday denounced Japan for its repeated claims to South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo.
“(We) strongly denounce the Japanese government’s repeated provocations of violating South Korea’s territorial sovereignty and distorting history,” a parliamentary committee said in a resolution.
Seoul-Tokyo relations are further worsening after Japan approved more middle-school textbooks earlier this month that claim the country’s ownership of the islets.
Japan renewed the territorial claim again in its foreign policy paper earlier this week, angering South Korea.
“(We) express our bitter regrets over Japan’s ambivalent attitude,” said the resolution issued by the 17-member parliamentary committee aimed at countering attempts to fabricate Northeast Asian history.
It cited Japan’s frequent calls for forward-looking relations, which is tantamount to Tokyo’s attempt to distort its shared history with Seoul.
Japan’s recent move to adopt such territorial claims in more school textbooks constitutes “a clear violation” of South Korea’s territorial sovereignty and the committee strongly calls for the withdrawal of the decision, the resolution showed.
The parliamentary resolution also called on the local government to make more efforts to counter Japan’s continued claims to Dokdo.
The committee will submit the resolution to the general parliamentary meeting for approval.
A series of nagging issues stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 colonization of Korea remained as impediments to bilateral relations, including the territory problem, as well as disputes over the Japanese imperial army’s sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II. (Yonhap)
