Japan renews territorial claim over Dokdo in new diplomatic paper

Japan renewed its territorial claim to the South Korean islets of Dokdo and voiced a complaint over a statue symbolic of Korean victims of its wartime sexual enslavement in its latest diplomatic white paper submitted to the Cabinet on Tuesday.

The paper, known as a diplomatic blue book, laid out Japan's "deep displeasure" over the installment of a girl statue in front of the Japanese diplomatic mission in the South Korean port city of Busan last year.

The paper called on Seoul to follow through with the 2015 bilateral deal to settle the history dispute involving the imperial Japanese Army's sexual enslavement of Korean women during its colonial control of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45.

"It is an obligation toward the international community to implement this with a sense of responsibility," it noted.

The paper also condemned a visit by a group of South Korean lawmakers to the East Sea islets of Dokdo last year. (Yonhap)