The Republic of Korea (ROK) on Wednesday condemned a local Japanese assembly's endorsement of a bill backing Japan's claim to a chain of disputed islets and demanded an immediate repeal of the law.

At an urgent press conference, ROK's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Kyu-hyung said ROK would "take every necessary measure" to have the Japanese legislation scrapped, warning that "Japan is to blame for all consequences."

Earlier in the day, the Assembly of Shimane Prefecture, in western Japan, passed a motion designating Feb. 22 as "Takeshima Day" to promote Japan's claim to "Takeshima," the rocky islands called "Dokdo" in Korean.

The ordinance approved by the Shimane Prefectural Assembly says the creation of the memorial day is aimed at enhancing Japan's territorial rights over the Takeshima islands and promoting awareness of the issue.

"We strongly protest that Shimane Prefecture ... went ahead and passed the Dokdo Day bill despite repeated requests from our government for a halt," Lee said.

Hours before the passing of the bill, ROK's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon protested the intended move and said sovereignty over Dokdo was not negotiable.

"There cannot be a true friendship between the two countries" if the "unfair act" went unaddressed, he said.

As the assembly was discussing the bill, Japanese police stopped a Seoul city assemblyman from cutting his finger and writing a statement in blood outside the assembly hall, the Kyodo News Agency said.

The South Korean man took out a knife and a piece of white paper from an attache case near the entrance of the assembly building, a local police spokesman said.

Police seized his knife and took him away, the spokesman said, adding that the man was unhurt and was not arrested.

Kyodo said the man was Seoul city assemblyman Choi Jae-Ik, who leads a group asserting ROK's territorial rights to the Dokdo islands.

Anti-Japanese demonstrations flared last month when Japan renewed its claim to the disputed islets. There have been daily protests outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul.

On Monday, two South Koreans each lopped off a finger during a rally in front of the embassy in protest of Japanese claims to the islets.

Annulment demanded

Lee, the spokesman, demanded the abolition of the law, which he called an attempt to damage ROK's sovereignty over Dokdo.

"The (ROK) government declares that such a reckless act by Shimane Prefecture carries no effect in terms of international law and does not have any effect on the current status of Dokdo," Lee said.

Dokdo, a group of 33 islets, is located some 89 km southeast of ROK's Uleung Island in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) and 160km northwest of Japan's Oki Island. The largely uninhabited islets are surrounded by rich fishing grounds.

The islets have been disputed since the end of World War II but are in effective control of South Korea, which has a contingent of coast guards stationed there.

At Wednesday's weekly press briefing, Foreign Minister Ban insisted that Dokdo could never be a subject of territorial dispute and negotiation.

He said Shimane Prefecture's intended action would be "lamentable" and "cannot have any effect on our sovereignty over Dokdo."

As a response, the ROK government would announce a set of measures later in the day to "solidify" the country's sovereignty over the islets, Ban said.

"Our government has no intention of hurting ROK-Japan ties unnecessarily ... but there cannot be a true friendship between the two countries if we overlook or turn a blind eye to the unfair act by Shimane Prefecture," he said.

Ban postponed indefinitely a visit to Japan last week in protest of Japan's renewed claim to the islands. The 60-year-old territorial dispute was more important than bilateral relations, he said.

But on Wednesday, Ban made clear that Seoul would not allow the dispute to mar the two countries' cooperation over the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. The two issues are separate, he stressed.

ROK and Japan are participants of the six-party talks aimed at peacefully resolving the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. The other four countries are China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United States and Russia.

(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2005)