By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
President Lee Myung-bak said Friday that his administration will come up with measures to ensure the country's continued control of the islets of Dokdo in the East Sea.
Lee made the remarks in response to Japan's repeated description of Dokdo as part of its territory. Japanese education authorities approved five textbooks for elementary school students, Tuesday, which assert the islets in the East Sea belong to Japan.
During a breakfast meeting with Chung Mong-joon, chairman of the governing Grand National Party (GNP), at Cheong Wa Dae, Lee asked the government to work out measures to counter Tokyo's claim, GNP spokeswoman Chung Mee-kyung told reporters.
Previously, only three of the five textbooks for fifth graders described Dokdo as Japanese territory in writing or on maps, but now all five contain descriptions or maps that lay out these claims to the islets.
One of the new editions even says that Dokdo was "illegally occupied by Korea."
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Yu Myung-hwan, summoned the Japanese Ambassador, Toshinori Shigeie, late Tuesday to demand that the historical distortion be corrected.
Located roughly halfway between South Korea and Japan, the rocky outcrop was annexed by Japan along with the Korean Peninsula in 1910, but Tokyo claims that territorial rights to the islets were declared five years before the start of Japanese colonial rule between 1910 and 1945.
Seoul has stationed a 50-strong police contingent on Dokdo since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War to reinforce ownership.