The Japanese government has responded with indignation, after Russia said it had ended negotiations with Japan over the southern Kuril Islands.
“Russia’s behaviour is highly unwarranted and totally unacceptable,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday, registering Tokyo’s “vehement” protest.
On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow said it was stopping the talks, calling this a reaction to “unfriendly steps” on Tokyo’s part.
Russia also cancelled an agreement for visa-free travel by Japanese people to the Kuril Islands after Japan joined the West’s sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow put the blame on Tokyo, saying the Japanese government had “deliberately chosen an anti-Russia course instead of developing mutually beneficial cooperation and neighbourly relations.
The territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands had strained ties between the two countries for decades.
The Kuril Islands archipelago lies between Russia and Japan’s Hokkaido Island.
Japan lost the islands to the Soviet Union after its surrender in World War II but claimed the four southernmost islands, with talks haven taken place about their future.
The dispute had long prevented an ultimate peace treaty between Russia, as the legal successor to the Soviet Union and Japan.
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Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin once spoke out in favour of a deal with Japan on the Kuril Islands but that hope was now over, according to Moscow.
