South Korea protests Japan's claim to islets

South Korea on Tuesday lodged a strong protest against Japan's repeated claims to its territory amid rising concerns about "proactive militarism" in Japan, caused by the forced passage of controversial security bills by nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe-led cabinet.

The Abe cabinet approved its annual defense white paper earlier in the day, saying that territorial issues over the Northern Territories and Takeshima were still "unresolved."

Takeshima refers to Dokdo in Korean, a couple of rocky outcroppings which South Korea retrieved after liberation from the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial rule. The Northern Territories mean four Kuril Islands controlled by Russia.

South Korea's Defense Ministry called in Nobuhisa Goto, defense attache of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to its headquarters, delivering a message of protest to him. It marked the eleventh year that Japan laid territorial claims in the paper to Dokdo islets.

The message said the South Korean military strongly protests Japan's repeated claims to Dokdo islets, its own territory historically, geographically and according to international laws.

It noted that Japan's unjust claim blocked a forward-looking development of military relations between Seoul and Tokyo, expressing deep regrets and strong protests against the annual defense white paper.

Since 1986, the South Korean military has staged maritime defense drills near the islets, lying closer to the Korean Peninsula than Japan. South Korea has also deployed security guards on the rocky islets since 1954.

The renewed territorial claims came amid mounting worries about Japan seeking to rearm itself by railroading the security bills last week in the lower house of its bicameral Diet. The legislation worried neighboring countries as it will allow Japan to dismiss the pacifist constitution and fight abroad for the first time since its defeat in WWII.

Abe's push for the "normalized" military, constrained by the U. S.-imposed constitution, fueled concerns about the resurrection of the militaristic Japan as the prime minister had yet to frankly acknowledge and sincerely apologize for its past war of aggression, colonization and the subsequent barbarities.

Seoul's foreign ministry said Japan's ungrounded claim to Dokdo was an act of defying the history of its past aggression of the Korean Peninsula by the Imperial Japan.

The act was also equivalent to Japan confessing its wrong perception of history to the international society as this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean Peninsula's independence from Japan's colonization.

Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told a press briefing that any Japanese ship or any military something from Japan can never be allowed to enter Dokdo without approval from South Korea.

Kim reiterated the military's stance that Japan must get approval first from South Korea if Japan's military seeks to exercise its right to collective self-defense on the Korean Peninsula.

Worries remained that Japan may carry out military operations on the peninsula with no advance nod from Seoul under the pretext of helping defend American forces.