Dispute flares up between Japan and South Korea over fishing rights

Japan has withdrawn from a fishing agreement with South Korea that has been in place for more than thirty years.

The South Korean Foreign Minister, Yoo Chong-Ha, described the move as a very unfriendly act and responded by lifting all restrictions on South Korean vessels fishing in disputed waters off the Japanese coast.

Tokyo and Seoul had been trying to renegotiate their agreement to accommodate a UN convention allowing a nation exclusive fishing rights within three hundred and seventy kilometres of its shores -- but at this distance their zones overlap.

Japan and South Korea already dispute sovereignty over a group of small islands in the Sea of Japan.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service