SEOUL, March 30 (Xinhua) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon on Thursday summoned Japan's envoy to Seoul to lodge protest over Japan's move to lay claim to controversial islets.

    The summon came one day after Japanese Education Ministry released the results of its annual review of new high school textbooks that will be introduced in 2007.

    Some of the new textbooks describe a group of controversial islets, called Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese, as Japan's territory.

    Ban expressed strong regret and protest over the results of Japanese education ministry's screening of the textbooks to Japanese Ambassador to Seoul Shotaro Oshima, pointing out they came amid the already-strained ties between the two nations over history.

    The South Korean foreign minister reiterated Seoul's position that Dokdo belongs to South Korea both historically and geographically.

    "Any measure by the Japanese government to damage South Korea's sovereign rights is unacceptable," Ban told the Japanese envoy.

    Earlier Thursday, South Korean Foreign Ministry had issued a strong worded statement, denouncing Japan's campaign to lay claim to the controversial islets through revising school textbooks.

    South Korea said 20 of the 55 kinds of Japan's high school textbooks on geography, history, and social affairs for next year reviewed by the Japanese Education Ministry have distorted descriptions of the islets as a territory of Japan.

    In the statement, the Seoul government urges Tokyo to retract its "undue and intolerable claims to Dokdo, which is owned by South Korea."

    South Korea insists that the Dokdo islets, located some 89 kilometers southeast to South Korean Uleung Island and 160 kilometers northwest to Japanese Oki Island in the Sea of Japan, have been listed as its territory in history literature since the fifth century.

    While Japan also claims the islets has been its territory since the 17th century, as written in literatures.

    Japan started annexation of the Korean Peninsula in the early 20th century and completed it in 1910.

    After liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, the first South Korean President Lee Seung-man issued a presidential declaration on the dominion over the coastal sea and sovereignty over Dokdo in January 1952. And Seoul has deployed coast police on the islets since 1954.

    The two sides also have deep differences over the name of the Sea of Japan, as South Korea insists that it should be called as "East Sea."

    It seemed the latest development may further deteriorate bilateral relations between the two countries, which were already worsened by a series of disputes over history issue and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visit to a controversial shrine. Enditem