SEOUL, March 22 (Xinhua) -- South Korea on Friday expressed deep regret over Japan's history-distorting textbooks that laid sovereignty claims over disputed islets, called Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that South Korea deeply regrets Japan's approval of middle school textbooks written with unjust claims over the Dokdo islets and other claims inconsistent with historical facts.

The ministry said Seoul strongly protests Tokyo's repeated approval of such textbooks, adding that Dokdo is South Korea's inherent territory historically, geographically, and by international law, noting that South Korea will not accept any Japanese claims over Dokdo.

Dokdo is a couple of rocky outcroppings lying halfway between South Korea and Japan, which were forcibly occupied by Imperial Japan during its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea restored its sovereignty over the islets after its liberation in 1945 from the colonization. Seoul has since maintained a small police detachment there.

South Koreans regard Japan's territorial claims over the islets as the denial of the colonial history.

The ministry said South Korea strongly regrets the expressions and descriptions in the textbooks about the Imperial Japan's sexual slavery and forced labor, which were changed in a way that reveals no coercion.

The ministry urged Japan to sincerely perform history education based on the spirit of apology and reflection, made by Japan itself in the past, adding that future-oriented relations between Seoul and Tokyo can start from a right perception of history.

Hundreds of thousands of Korean people were forced, kidnapped or duped into sexual servitude for Japan's military brothels or coerced into heavy labor without pay for Japan's arms manufacturers during the Pacific War. Enditem

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