South Korea criticises Abe's comments over disputed islets

South Korea on Friday denounced Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's latest remarks that Tokyo is considering bringing the territorial dispute over the islets off South Korea's east coast, known as Dokdo here and Takeshima in Japan, to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). South Korea's Foreign Ministry slammed Abe's comment made a day earlier as nothing but "empty rhetoric and a meaningless thing," Yonhap News Agency reported on Friday. Tokyo regularly provoked Seoul by claiming its sovereignty over the disputed islets. Japanese Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura on Tuesday announced that the ministry has revised the country's teaching manuals for junior and senior high schools to claim areas in disputes between Japan and China and between Japan and South Korea. The new manuals will describe the disputed territories as " Japan's integral parts," according to Japan's Kyodo News. On Tuesday, South Korea also blasted on Japan's move with the South Korean Foreign Ministry summoning Japanese Ambassador Koro Bessho and demanding Japan retract the manuals. Relations between South Korea and Japan have been strained since Shinzo Abe took office in late 2012. The ongoing row between Tokyo and Seoul also includes issues of Japan's continuous push for collective self-defense, wrong historical perception about using of Korean "comfort women" and exploiting Korean labor during the war, which have prevented the two sides from holding summit level talks.