Seoul, South Korea — President Lee of South Korea called on his government to counter Japan’s claim that a chain of disputed islands are its territory with a strategic approach.

“We have to keep in mind that Japan has been employing a long-term strategy and has turned these territories into an international dispute one step at a time,” Mr. Lee told his ministers at a Cabinet meeting yesterday, according to his spokesman, Lee Dong Kwan. “We too need to take a strategic, long-term approach to this matter.”

The most recent dispute over the islands began July 14, when Japan issued new school guidelines that described the islands South Korea has controlled for 50 years as Japanese territory. South Korea temporarily recalled its ambassador to Japan in protest, signaling a pause in warming relations under Mr. Lee and Prime Minister Fukuda of Japan.

The group of 33 islets is about 54 miles east of South Korea’s Ullung Island and 97 miles northwest of the Oki islands, which are part of Japan’s Shimane Prefecture. The chain is known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese.

About 30 protesters have gathered in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul each day since the announcement. A group of elderly South Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japan’s military in World War II also took part in yesterday’s protest.

South Korea will seek to raise international awareness about the dispute and consider ways to bolster its claim to the islands, Mr. Lee said yesterday, according to his spokesman.

A group of ruling and opposition party lawmakers from South Korea may travel to Tokyo to lodge a protest with their Japanese counterparts, the Assembly speaker, Kim Hyong O, said in an interview broadcast on Seoul’s YTN cable news network.