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Japan rejects accusations of questioning outcome of WWII

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an interview said that Japan questions the outcome of World War II

© AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky

TOKYO, May 20. /TASS/. A Japanese top government spokesman reacted to the recent statement of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Japan is "the only country in the world that doubts the outcome of World War II."

"This comment is completely off-target," Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference in Tokyo.

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Suga stressed that Lavrov’s words would not affect the Russian-Japanese talks. "We want to continue intense negotiations to solve the territorial issue and sign a peace treaty," he said.

Lavrov said that Japan questions the outcome of World War II in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily posted on its website on Tuesday.

"We always ask the Japanese ‘Gentlemen, do you recognize the results of World War II?" the foreign minister said in reply to the question on prospects for the settlement of the dispute over the Southern Kuril Islands that Japan calls Northern Territories.

"They said ‘On the whole yes, we do, but not in this issue’," he said. "And how did you ratify the UN Charter then? It has Article 107, which says that all that was done by the victorious powers is sacred and inviolable," Lavrov added.

"Maybe the wording is different, but the legal meaning is - don’t touch anything," he said. "We are referring them to the UN Charter and they have nothing to say against it, while we can say that Japan is the only country that challenges the results of WWII, nobody else does this," the top Russian diplomat continued.

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