Japan has rebuffed a protest from South Korea against descriptions in new Japanese high school textbooks of thorny bilateral issues related to territory and history, the top government spokesman said Wednesday.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the protest, made Tuesday when South Korea's Foreign Ministry summoned Naoki Kumagai, deputy chief of mission at the Japanese Embassy in South Korea, is "unacceptable." South Korea has claimed that the textbooks "distort historical facts."
Relations between Tokyo and Seoul remain frosty over a group of islets controlled by South Korea but claimed by Japan, and issues related to wartime Korean laborers as well as "comfort women," or women who suffered under Japan’s military brothel system before and during World War II.