The Japanese government lodged a protest with the South Korean government on Friday as Seoul began streaming images from a pair of South Korean-controlled islets in the Sea of Japan that are claimed by Japan.
Takehiro Funakoshi, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, protested to Kim Yong Gil, a counselor at the South Korean Embassy in Tokyo, that the islets, called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea, are an "inherent part" of Japanese territory, and demanded that the live webcast be halted immediately.
In Seoul, a senior official at the Japanese Embassy conveyed a similar message to a South Korean Foreign Ministry official there.
South Korea's Oceans and Fisheries Ministry announced Thursday that it would soon start livestreaming footage from the islets, prompting the Japanese Foreign Ministry to lodge a protest afterward.
The images from two vantage points on the islets began being streamed on government-run websites on Friday. The oceans ministry has said the service is aimed at increasing the public's interest in and affinity toward the territory.
The rocky outcrops have long been a source of tension between the two neighbors. South Korea has been in effective control of them since the 1950s.
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