Japan reiterates possession of Island disputed with South Korea

Japan reaffirmed its possession of a disputed island in the Sea of ​​Japan taken over by South Korea on Monday, increasing tensions between neighbors already high over Seoul’s demands that Japan compensate for its actions during World War II.

Monday is the anniversary of the day that Japan placed the island under the jurisdiction of the western Japanese prefecture of Shimane in 1905. Japan has held the annual ceremony since 2006 in an attempt to emphasize its possession of the island.

The uninhabited islet in a rich coastal area in northwestern Shimane is called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea. Since the 1950s it has been effectively controlled by South Korea.

Yoshiaki Wada, a cabinet official representing the central government at the ceremony in Matsue, the prefectural capital, accused South Korea of ​​”illegal occupation without any legal basis under international law.”

“It is totally unacceptable,” he added.

The governor of Shimane, Tatsuya Maruyama, described the actions that South Korea has taken on the island, including military exercises, as “an attempt to make the occupation of Takeshima a fait accompli” and urged the Japanese government to resolve the dispute by through diplomacy.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry denounced Japan for continuing the “vain provocations” in carrying out the event.

In a statement, he demanded to cancel the event and insisted that the island is South Korean territory according to “history, geography and international law.”