Al-Marsad newspaper – Agencies: Japan described four islands that it disputes with Moscow over ownership as “illegally occupied by Russia”, in the latest version of a diplomatic report issued Friday, using stronger language to describe the territorial dispute and emphasizing the cold relations between the two sides amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. .
This is stated in the 2022 “Diplomatic Blue Book,” an annual report on Japan’s foreign policy issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that uses this language for the first time in nearly two decades.
Japan, which has struggled to improve relations with Russia to regain control of the Kuril Islands, which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories, has previously described the dispute in a softer tone.
“The Northern Territories are a group of islands over which Japan has sovereignty and which are an integral part of Japan’s territory, but are currently illegally occupied by Russia,” the ministry said in the report.
The dispute over the Russian-controlled islands, which the former Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of World War II, prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty officially ending hostilities between them.
The report last used a similar expression in 2003, but then softened the language until last year, when it described the dispute as “the greatest concern between Japan and Russia” and noted that “Japan has sovereignty” over the islands.
