Japan has protested South Korea's move to put dessert with a decoration featuring Dokdo on the table for the dinner planned for the upcoming historic inter-Korean summit, a local media reported Wednesday.
According to Japan's broadcaster NHK, Kenji Kanasugi, the Japanese foreign ministry's director-general of Asian and Oceania affairs, protested the Seoul government's decision in his meeting with a senior South Korean Embassy official in Tokyo.
He is also reported to have expressed regrets and called on the Seoul government to drop the food from the dinner menu.
|
(Photo courtesy of Cheong Wa Dae-Yonhap) |
On Tuesday, the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae disclosed the details of the menu for the summit dinner that included the dessert capped with an edible map of a unified Korean Peninsula also showing the country's eastern islets of Dokdo.
The dessert will be presented during the dinner for South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who are to meet for a historic summit Friday on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom.
Dokdo has long been a recurring source of tension between the neighbors as Japan has repeatedly laid claim to the islets. South Korea has kept a small police detachment on Dokdo since its liberation from Japan in 1945 and has made clear that Tokyo's claims are utterly groundless. (Yonhap)