Tokyo summoned Moscow‘s ambassador Monday to protest Russian President Dmitry Medvedev‘s visit to a disputed islet in the Kuril Islands, which the Japanese government condemned as “very regrettable,” Agence France Press reports.
“As Japan has kept its position that the four northern islands belong to Japanese territory, the president‘s visit there is very regrettable,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan told parliament.
Medvedev arrived at Kunashiri island in the southern Kurils on Monday, spending a few hours there before leaving.
The Kuril Islands, which lie north of Japan‘s Hokkaido island, have been controlled by Moscow since they were seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War II, but Tokyo claims the southernmost four as Japanese territory.
Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara summoned Russia‘s ambassador to Japan, Mikhail Bely, to protest over the visit, Kan said.
But Bely said afterwards that he ”told him (Maehara) that it is Russia‘s domestic issue.
”I requested Japan to deal with it cool-headedly and in a balanced manner,” he told reporters, according to Jiji Press.
Source: http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201011023285157
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