SEOUL, Feb 22, 2026 (Reuters) – South Korea on ‌Sunday protested a Japanese government event commemorating a cluster of disputed islands between the two countries, calling the ​move an unjust assertion of sovereignty over its territory.

In a statement, the foreign ministry said it strongly objected to the Takeshima Day event held by Japan’s Shimane prefecture and to the attendance of a senior Japanese government official, urging Japan to immediately abolish the ceremony.

The tiny ‌islets, known as ‌Takeshima in Japan and ​Dokdo ‌in South ⁠Korea, ​which controls ⁠them, have long been a source of tension between the two neighbors, whose relations remain strained by disputes rooted in Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

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“Dokdo is clearly South Korea’s sovereign territory historically, geographically and ⁠under international law,” the ministry said, calling ‌on Japan to ‌drop what it described as groundless ​claims and to face ‌history with humility.

The ministry summoned a top ‌Japanese diplomat to the ministry building in Seoul to lodge a protest.

A person at Japan’s foreign ministry said no one was available on Sunday to comment. ‌A call to the Prime Minister’s Office went unanswered. The government sent a ⁠vice-minister ⁠from the Cabinet Office, not a cabinet minister, to the ceremony.

Seoul has repeatedly objected to Japan’s territorial claims over the islands, including a protest issued on Friday over comments by Japan’s foreign minister during a parliamentary address asserting Tokyo’s sovereignty over the islets.

The territory lies in fertile fishing grounds and may sit above enormous deposits of natural gas hydrate that could be worth ​billions of dollars, ​Seoul has said.