South Korean forces yesterday began two days of expanded drills around an island also claimed by Japan, prompting a protest from Tokyo only days after Seoul said it would scrap an intelligence-sharing pact with its neighbor amid worsening relations.
Tokyo and Seoul have long been at loggerheads over the sovereignty of the group of islets called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, which lie about halfway between the East Asian neighbors in the Sea of Japan, which South Korea insists should be called the East Sea.
The latest military drills included naval, air, and army forces, as well as marines, a South Korean Ministry of Defense official said.
Photo: EPA-EFE / South Korea Navy handout
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the drills “absolutely unacceptable” and said it had lodged a protest with South Korea calling for them to end.
The island is “obviously an inherent part of the territory of Japan,” Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Director-General Kenji Kanasugi told the South Korean embassy in Tokyo in a statement.
Ko Min-jung, a spokeswoman for South Korea’s presidential Blue House, said the drill was an annual exercise and not aimed at any specific country.
“It’s an exercise to guard our sovereignty and territory,” she told reporters in Seoul.
The exercise included significantly more South Korean forces than previously involved and spanned a wider area in the sea between South Korea and Japan, a South Korean navy official said.
For the first time the drills included an Aegis-equipped destroyer and army special forces, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The disputed islands have long been one of the most sensitive areas of contention between Japan and South Korea.
A detachment of South Korean guards has been stationed there since the 1950s and South Korea has conducted annual defense drills in the area.
Tokyo accuses South Korea of occupying the islands illegally.
The South Korean Navy said the drills were designed to underscore its commitment to defending the broader area.
“The military has changed the name of the drills to ‘East Sea Territorial Protection Exercise’ reflecting the scale and meaning of the drills to solidify the military’s resolve to protect the territory in the East Sea,” the navy said in a statement.
Previous drills had been called the “Dokdo Defense Exercise.”
Additional reporting by AFP
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