For more news visit ☛ http://english.ntdtv.com
Follow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevision
Add us on Facebook ☛ http://facebook.com/NTDTelevision
A group of South Koreans slashed Japanese flags in a protest on Thursday. The controversy involves new Japanese textbooks for junior high students. The books claim that a set of disputed islands controlled by South Korea belong to Japan.
On Thursday, South Koreans protested Japan's new school textbooks that lay claim to disputed islets known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea.
The protests came after the Japanese government approved new middle school textbooks claiming the islets as Japanese territory.
About 100 people gathered in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul and destroyed Japanese flags... but police stopped the group from setting the flags on fire.
[Choo Seon-hee, Protest Leader]:
"All the people in the world know Dokdo is our territory. But the Japanese teach distorted history to their students. They are wrong. Shame on the Japanese!"
South Korea's government has made an official protest. Seoul's deputy foreign minister presided over an emergency meeting over the dispute.
[Min Dong-seok, Deputy Foreign Minister]:
"Japan approved new middle school textbooks yesterday. We are here today to discuss how our government should cope with the situation."
Japan and South Korea both claim historical rights to the cluster of rocks, which have little obvious economic value. The islets are in the midst of fishing grounds and may sit above valuable deposits of natural gas.
