Fisheries minister Tsutomu Takebe on Tuesday rejected Seoul's demand that Tokyo provide alternate fishing venues if it maintains its ban on South Korean fishing operations in waters off the Sanriku region of northeastern Japan.
"Tokyo has no business to offer alternative fishing places to South Korea," he told a regular news conference.
Japan last week imposed a ban on South Korea's fishing operations off the Pacific coast areas of Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures -- known collectively as the Sanriku region -- in retaliation for Seoul's agreement with Russia to fish around a group of Russian-held islands off Hokkaido that Japan claims.