Tokyo (AFP)
Tokyo will "strongly protest" against South Korea's decision to break a military intelligence-sharing deal, the Japanese foreign minister said on Thursday, calling the move "extremely regrettable."
"I must say that the decision to end this pact by the South Korean government is a total misjudgment of the regional security situation and is extremely regrettable," Taro Kono said in a statement.
"We can not accept the claims of the South Korean side and we will protest strongly to the South Korean government," Kono added.
Seoul had said earlier that it was "not in the national interest to maintain the agreement that was signed with the aim of exchanging sensitive military intelligence".
Relations between Tokyo and Seoul have been plagued for decades by litigation inherited from the time when the peninsula was a Japanese colony (1910-1945).
And this latent conflict is a headache for Washington, which relies on cooperation between Japan and South Korea to support its policy in a particularly tense region due to the North Korean nuclear threat and the rise of power. China.
The quarrel between Tokyo and Seoul has worsened in recent weeks, after South Korean courts demanded Japanese companies to compensate South Koreans who were forced to work in their factories during the Japanese occupation. until the end of the Second World War.
Tokyo fought back on August 2 by deciding to remove South Korea from a list of states receiving special treatment, a measure perceived as a sanction by Seoul, which responded immediately with similar radiation.
Seoul has decided to implement its threat of not renewing the military intelligence sharing agreement.
It was concluded in November 2016 under the aegis of Washington in the context of the rise of North Korea's ballistic and nuclear programs.
The purpose of the pact was to better coordinate the collection of information on the regime and activities of North Korea.
© 2019 AFP