S.Korea to spurn Japan minister over island row

SEOUL, July 17 (Reuters) - South Korea has rejected Japan's proposal to hold a foreign ministers' meeting at an Asian forum later this month in anger over a territorial dispute, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Thursday.

Japan on Monday renewed territorial claims over desolate islands claimed by both countries but controlled by South Korea, triggering official complaints from Seoul and angry protests at its embassy there.

"Japan recently proposed a bilateral meeting in Singapore but we replied we had no such plan," Yonhap quoted a diplomatic source as saying.

Foreign ministry officials in Seoul declined to confirm the report but one official said its minister Yu Myung-hwan had no plans to meet with Japan's Masahiko Komura in Singapore.

The fight over desolate islands, known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese, has been a persistent irritant in ties between the neighbours, rekindling memories in South Korea of Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule over the peninsula.

President Lee Myung-bak, who had pledged better ties with major trading partner Japan after his predecessor waged a "diplomatic war," said on Wednesday South Koreans were "understandably enraged" and prescribed a tough response. (Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)