By Josh Smith
SEOUL, Aug 25 (Reuters) - South Korea's military willconduct two days of drills around a tiny island also claimed byJapan, Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday, just days afterSeoul decided to scrap an intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyoamid worsening relations.
Tokyo and Seoul have long been at loggerheads over thesovereignty of the group of islets called Takeshima in Japaneseand Dokdo in Korean, which lie about halfway between the EastAsian neighbours in the Sea of Japan, which Seoul refers to asthe East Sea.
The military drills were scheduled to begin on Sunday,Yonhap reported, and could exacerbate tensions between the twoneighbours.
South Koreas on Thursday had announced the scrapping of theintelligence-sharing pact with Japan, drawing a swift protestfrom Tokyo and deepening a decades-old dispute over history thathas hit trade and undercut security cooperation over NorthKorea.
Relations between South Korea and Japan began to deterioratelate last year following a diplomatic row over compensation forwartime forced labourers during Japan’s occupation of Korea.
They soured further when Japan tightened its curbs onexports of high-tech materials needed by South Korea’s chipindustry, and again this month when Tokyo said it would removeSouth Korea’s fast-track export status.
The disputed islands have long been one of the mostsensitive areas of contention for South Korea and Japan.Recently, South Korea and Japan traded words over the way theislands were described on a website for the 2020 Tokyo SummerOlympics.
The islands were at the centre of a more serious clash inJuly, when both South Korea and Japan responded to what they sawas a violation of their air space near the islands by a Russianmilitary plane.(Reporting by Josh SmithEditing by Leslie Adler)