SEOUL: South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan summoned Japanese Ambassador in Seoul Toshinori Shigeie late Friday to protest against Tokyo's newly released education guidebook.

In the 20-minute meeting at his office, Yu conveyed the South Korean government's stance to the ambassador, saying that the government expressed strong regret over the issue.

The issue will leave "negative influence" on the development of future-oriented relations between the two countries, Yu added.

Seoul's move came after Japan's Education Ministry unveiled its revised education guideline for high school teachers Friday morning, which Seoul had previously suspected might have described the lonely islets lying halfway between the two countries as Japan 's territory.

However, the revised guidebook eliminated the description of the disputed islets, known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan, in an apparent gesture that Tokyo does not want to mar ties with South Korea in line with a new policy after Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama took power in August, local media said.

But the guidebook demands students' deeper understanding on territorial problems, which is regarded as an "ambiguous" expression leaving room for Tokyo's territorial claim over the islets.

In an official response earlier in the day, the South Korean government reiterated its position that no territorial problem exists between the two countries, regardless of what claim the Japanese government might make.