South Korea lashed out Friday at Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his remarks that Tokyo is considering bringing their territorial dispute over Dokdo to the International Court of Justice.

Japan has long laid claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo, stoking deep resentment among South Koreans against Japan, which colonized the Korean Peninsula in 1910-45.

Seoul's Foreign Ministry condemned Abe's comment made a day earlier, calling it nothing but "empty rhetoric and a meaningless thing." 

Tokyo's repeated claims to the islets have long been a key source of tension between the two neighbors. South Korea has been keeping a small police detachment on Dokdo since 1954. (Yonhap)