Tokyo - A South Korean man cut his fingers in central Tokyo Thursday to protest against Japan's decision to claim sovereignty over the disputed Dokdo islets.

Japanese police took the man in his 50s into custody after he sliced his right ring finger and pinky to write a protest message in blood on a flag,

He was conducting a sit-in with other protesters near the prime minister's residence, according to police.

"I came here to protest against the Takeshima (Dokdo) islets issue," police quoted him as saying.

The long-disputed territorial issue over the cluster of rocky islets in what Tokyo calls the Sea of Japan and Seoul the East Sea resurfaced recently when Japan's education ministry decided to include a claim to sovereignty over the islets in a junior high school teaching guideline earlier this month.

The move angered Seoul as did the decision seven days ago by the US Board on Geographic Names to re-categorize the islets from South Korean sovereignty to "undesignated."

The South Korean embassy in Washington lodged a protest and on Wednesday President George W Bush ordered the reinstatement that the islets are of South Korea's ownership

At a press briefing Wednesday Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs in Bush's National Security Council, confirmed the order and expressed hope that Japan and South Korea can resolve the row diplomatically.

''Let me be very clear that our policy on this territorial dispute has been firm and consistent since 1952, and that is we do not take a position on this territorial dispute,'' he said.

''It is their issue to resolve." (dpa)