SEOUL: SouthKorean forces began two days of expanded drills yesterday around an island alsoclaimed by Japan, prompting a protest from Tokyo only days after Seoul said itwould scrap an intelligence-sharing pact with its neighbor amid worseningrelations. Tokyo and Seoul have long been at loggerheads over the sovereigntyof the group of islets called Takeshima in Japanese and Dokdo in Korean, whichlie about halfway between the East Asian neighbors in the Sea of Japan, alsoknown as the East Sea.
The latestmilitary drills began yesterday and included naval, air, and army forces, aswell as marines, a South Korean ministry of defense official said. The Japaneseforeign ministry called the drills unacceptable and said it had lodged aprotest with South Korea calling for them to end. The island is "obviouslyan inherent part of the territory of Japan", Kenji Kanasugi, the directorgeneral at the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, told the SouthKorean Embassy in Tokyo in a statement.
Ko Min-jung, aspokeswoman for South Korea's presidential Blue House, said the drill was anannual exercise and not aimed at any specific country. "It's an exerciseto guard our sovereignty and territory," she told reporters in Seoul. Theexercise included significantly more South Korean forces than previouslyinvolved and spanned a wider area in the sea between South Korea and Japan, aSouth Korean navy official said.
For the first timethe drills included an Aegis-equipped destroyer and army special forces, theofficial said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity ofthe issue. Tensions in the region have spiked amid a worsening political andeconomic spat between South Korea and Japan, a string of missile launches byNorth Korea, and increasingly assertive military patrols by China and Russia.South Korea announced the scrapping of an intelligence-sharing pact with Japanon Thursday, drawing a swift protest from Tokyo and deepening a decades-olddispute over wartime history that has hit trade and undercut securitycooperation over North Korea.
Relations betweenSouth Korea and Japan began to deteriorate late last year following adiplomatic row over compensation for wartime forced laborers during Japan'soccupation of Korea. They soured further when Japan tightened its curbs onexports of high-tech materials needed by South Korea's chip industry, and againthis month when Tokyo said it would remove South Korea's fast-track exportstatus.
The disputedislands have long been one of the most sensitive areas of contention betweenJapan and South Korea. A detachment of South Korean guards has been stationedthere since the 1950s and South Korea has conducted annual defense drills inthe area. The current exercises had been delayed as relations deteriorated,Yonhap news agency reported. In July, South Korea and Japan responded to whatthey saw as a violation of their air space near the islands by a Russianmilitary plane.
The South Koreannavy said the drills were designed to underscore its commitment to defendingthe broader area. "The military has changed the name of the drills to'East Sea Territorial Protection Exercise' reflecting the scale and meaning ofthe drills to solidify the military's resolve to protect the territory in theEast Sea," the South Korean navy said in a statement. Previous drills hadbeen called the "Dokdo Defense Exercise." - Reuters