Russia categorically rejects Japan's protest in connection with the trip of Russian Emergency Situations Minister Yevgeny Zinichev to Kunashir, one of four Kuril islands claimed by Japan, the Russian Embassy in Tokyo said on Thursday
TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th August, 2020) Russia categorically rejects Japan's protest in connection with the trip of Russian Emergency Situations Minister Yevgeny Zinichev to Kunashir, one of four Kuril islands claimed by Japan, the Russian Embassy in Tokyo said on Thursday.
The embassy wrote on Facebook that on Wednesday, the Japanese Foreign Ministry had issued an official protest to Moscow in connection with Zinichev's participation in the opening of an emergency rescue center on Kunashir.
"In response, we indicated that we consider such statements by the Japanese side categorically unacceptable," the embassy said.
The diplomatic mission also stressed that "the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over the southern Kuril Islands is not in doubt."
The relations between Russia and Japan have long been complicated by the fact that the two countries have never signed a permanent peace treaty following World War II. The main issue holding the two countries back is their dispute over a group of four Kuril islands Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai.
In November 2018, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to accelerate peace treaty talks on the basis of a Soviet-era joint declaration. The document signed in 1956, among other things, stipulates the Soviet Union's transfer of the two disputed islands Habomai and Shikotan to Japan following the conclusion of the peace treaty. The year that followed the two leaders' agreement to use the declaration as basis for peace negotiations saw a series of frequent meetings between both Putin and Abe, and the nations' foreign ministers.
