Seoul, Tokyo spar over territorial, wartime payment issues

SEOUL/TOKYO — South Korea protested at Japan’s repeated territorial claim on Thursday, a day after Japan summoned South Korea’s ambassador to protest a wartime labor compensation payment.

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the South Korean government strongly protested at Japan’s reiteration of the unjust sovereignty claim over Dokdo and sternly called for an immediate abolition of the so-called Takeshima Day event.

The Dokdo islets, which are called Takeshima in Japan, lie halfway between the two countries.

Earlier on Thursday, Japan’s Shimane

prefecture held what it called the Takeshima Day event, attended by a high-level official of Japan’s central government.

The prefecture has held annual events to mark the day to claim its administrative sovereignty over the rocky islets since it designated Feb 22 as Takeshima Day in 2005.

South Korea restored sovereignty over the Dokdo islets from Japan after the Korean Peninsula’s liberation from the 1910-45 Japanese colonization.

South Koreans have regarded Japan’s claim over the islets as the denial of atrocities committed by Japan during its colonial rule.

The foreign ministry summoned Taisuke Mibae, deputy chief of mission at the Japanese embassy in Seoul, to lodge a protest against the renewed territorial claim.

It came as Japan summoned South Korea’s ambassador to protest a compensation payment by a Japanese company related to the thorny issue of wartime forced labor.

The family of a South Korean victim who won a wartime labor case against Japanese shipbuilder Hitachi Zosen in December received money from the firm this week.

The money was retrieved from a deposit provided by the firm to a court in Seoul after South Korea’s top court in December ordered Hitachi Zosen to pay 50 million won ($37,500) in compensation to the victim.

The indirect payment — the first of its kind — has drawn condemnation from Japan, which maintains that the forced labor dispute was settled in a 1965 treaty.

Japan’s vice-foreign minister on Wednesday “summoned South Korean Ambassador to Japan Yun Duk-min and lodged a strong protest”, top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.