A set of distant islands referred to as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese. FIle
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters
South Korea on Sunday (February 22, 2026) protested a Japanese authorities occasion commemorating a cluster of disputed islands between the 2 international locations, calling the transfer an unjust assertion of sovereignty over its territory.
In a press release, the International Ministry stated it strongly objected to the Takeshima Day occasion held by Japan’s Shimane prefecture and to the attendance of a senior Japanese authorities official, urging Japan to instantly abolish the ceremony.
The tiny islets, often called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, that are managed by them, have lengthy been a supply of rigidity between the 2 neighbours, whose relations stay strained by disputes rooted in Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
“Dokdo is clearly South Korea’s sovereign territory traditionally, geographically and below worldwide regulation,” the Ministry stated, calling on Japan to drop what it described as groundless claims and to face historical past with humility.
The Ministry summoned a high Japanese diplomat to the Ministry constructing in Seoul to lodge a protest.
An individual at Japan’s International Ministry stated nobody was out there on Sunday (February 22, 2026) to remark. A name to the Prime Minister’s Workplace went unanswered. The federal government despatched a Vice-Minister from the Cupboard Workplace, not a Cupboard Minister, to the ceremony.
Seoul has repeatedly objected to Japan’s territorial claims over the islands, together with a protest issued on Friday (February 20, 2026) over feedback by Japan’s International Minister throughout a parliamentary tackle asserting Tokyo’s sovereignty over the islets.
The territory lies in fertile fishing grounds and will sit above huge deposits of pure gasoline hydrate that might be price billions of {dollars}, Seoul has stated.
Printed – February 22, 2026 10:19 pm IST