The Russian Foreign Ministry told RIA Novosti that Moscow had already informed Tokyo about the impossibility of agreeing to hold intergovernmental consultations on the implementation of a cooperation agreement in the field of fishing for marine resources in the Kuril Islands of the South in the context of the fight against Russia. measures taken by the Japanese government. The new sanctions, announced this week, go against the spirit and letter of the 1998 bilateral agreement to strengthen and develop good neighborliness.
At Smolenskaya Square, they stressed that Tokyo “is often ahead of the locomotive,” anticipating sanctions initiatives by its Western allies, drawing attention to the abolition of Japan’s most-favored-nation regime for Russia, as well as the expulsion of a group of Russian diplomats.
The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that Japan should show elementary respect for Russia, “a desire to straighten bilateral relations in order to return to normal dialogue,” adding that the Japanese government does not have such a desire at this time.
The 1998 agreement between the governments of the Russian Federation and Japan on certain issues of cooperation in the field of harvesting marine living resources regulates Japanese fishing in the Russian territorial sea in the region of the southern Kuril Islands.