South Korea condemned on Monday Japan's approval of textbooks that Seoul said distorted history by claiming disputed islands. It summoned Japan's ambassador and warned that the approval was a sign Japan was prepared to repeat its colonial wartime past.

The strongly worded protest came just over two weeks after the foreign ministers of the two countries and China pledged to improve ties and overcome tension over history and territory, and to try to work for a summit meeting of their leaders soon.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the book approval was "yet another provocation that distorts, reduces and omits clear historic facts to strengthen its unjust claims to what is clearly our territory".