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Diplomat slams Tokyo for its demarche over Russian sovereignty on South Kurils

Maria Zakharova believes that Moscow and Tokyo need to go along the "path of negotiations, dialogue and cooperation" to resolve all their existing issues

© Sergei Krasnoukhov/TASS

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Tokyo’s statements relating to the South Kuril Islands run contrary to the agreements reached by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on taking measures to sign a peace treaty between the countries, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.

According to the diplomat, Japan continues to issue complaints relating to various events that are held in the Kuril Islands. Tokyo sent another demarche to the Russian embassy in the Japanese capital on April 9 after reports started emerging that Moscow deployed Russian military UAVs on the islands, she recalled.

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"We view the actions undertaken by Japan as yet another testament of their persistent unwillingness to recognize the results of World War II laid out in the Japanese Instrument of Surrender signed by the country [in 1945] and later in 1956 when it became a UN member state. Such a position borders on revanchism and runs contrary to the aspirations of trust and a positive climate in bilateral relations expressed by the leaders of Russia and Japan," Zakharova pointed out.

"We have repeatedly said and pointed out to Tokyo that such demarches are unacceptable, which are essentially an attempt to intervene in our domestic affairs. Irrelevant of the validity and nature of the news mentioned earlier, I’d like to once again remind you that Russia enjoys the legal right to hold any events on Russian soil, including those that bolster the nation’s defense capabilities," the spokeswoman said.

She believes that Moscow and Tokyo need to go along the "path of negotiations, dialogue and cooperation" to resolve all their existing issues. "The path of demarches and protests on this issues I mentioned is a path that leads to a dead-end," Zakharova concluded.

On April 8, Izvestia reported that the Russian Defense Ministry had deployed UAV units in the Kamchatka Region and the Kuril Islands. In particular, the 18th machine gun-artillery division, stationed in the islands of Iturup and Kunashir, received the Orlan-10 UAVs with a range of 120 km, which had demonstrated its reliability in Syria.

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