By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The Ministry of National Defense lodged an angry complaint with the Japanese government over its description of South Korea's Dokdo islets in the East Sea as being their territory on Friday.
``We express deep regret that Japan again claims South Korea's sovereign Dokdo islets as its territory in its 2007 defense white paper despite our previous protests on the same issue in 2005 and 2006,'' spokesman Col. Kang Yong-hee said.
``Our government has delivered a strong protest against the move and has called on the Japanese government not to justify its past colonial rule (of the Korean Peninsula) and recognize that such an activity hinders the future-oriented development of relations between the two countries,'' he said.
Later in the day, the ministry summoned the military attache at Japan's Embassy in South Korea to demand rectification of the problem, the spokesman added.
Located roughly halfway between South Korea and Japan, the rocky islets are at the center of a decade-old dispute between the two neighbors with both sides undisputedly claiming them to be their own.
The islets were annexed by Japan along with the Korean Peninsula in 1910, but Tokyo claims its territorial rights to the islets were declared five years before the start of Japanese colonial rule.
South Korea has stationed a police contingent on the islets since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War to symbolize its ownership.