Japan’s top diplomat has repeated Tokyo’s sovereignty claim over South Korea's Dokdo islets in the East Sea. 

Speaking at the opening of the Japanese parliament on Monday, Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Japan will be firm in delivering its claim to the South Korean islets and tenacious in responding to the related dispute with Seoul. 

This is the sixth consecutive year a Japanese foreign minister has laid claim to Dokdo in the annual parliamentary speech. Kono issued the same remarks last year, calling the islets by the Japanese name Takeshima, which he claimed is Japan’s indigenous territory. 

Kono also urged South Korea to abide by “international promises,” apparently referring to Tokyo’s claim that a 1965 normalization treaty settled all colonial issues between the two countries. 

Last year, the South Korean Supreme Court ruled against two Japanese companies in lawsuits filed by South Korean victims of wartime forced labor, ordering them to deliver compensation.