South Korea has condemned Japan’s refusal to ban images of the former imperial flag of the rising sun from the Tokyo Olympic Games next summer, as relations between Seoul and Tokyo continue to sour.

South Korea’s foreign ministry on Tuesday called on the organisers of the 2020 Games and the International Olympic Committee to forbid depictions of a flag that is widely associated with Imperial Japan’s conquest and occupation of large parts of the Pacific and mainland Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.

The committee rejected the request, the Sankei Shimbun reported, on the grounds that it does not believe the flag serves as political propaganda.

An Min-suk, a member of the ruling Democratic Party and head of the South Korean government’s Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee, claimed in a radio interview on Wednesday that the decision “violates the spirit” of the Olympic Games.

If Japan violates the IOC spirit that separates sport from politics, the games will be “the most shameful event since the 1936 Nazi Olympic”, he said.

Mr An went on to call on other countries in the region to support Seoul’s position on the matter and to “denounce” Japan. The first country that the South should link up with is North Korea, he added.