TOKYO, April 3. /TASS/. Japan must acknowledge its faulty anti-Russian policy in order to improve bilateral relations and the unilateral cancellation of sanctions would not be sufficient, Russian Ambassador to Japan Nikolai Nozdrev told TASS on Wednesday.
In an interview with TASS, Nozdrev said that the current state of bilateral relations between Russia and Japan "is currently under a strong negative pressure exerted by the hostile policy on behalf of the Japanese administration led by [Japanese Prime Minister] Fumio Kishida."
The diplomat noted that Tokyo resorted "to an absolutely considerate and deliberate choice," having decided that "the costs of actually ruining relations with one of its main neighbors, which is Russia, would be lower if compared to the benefits that Japan may gain from joining the anti-Russian campaign."
"It is extremely difficult to speak about the future of bilateral relations under such conditions," Nozdrev continued. "It seems that the only way out of this situation is that the Japanese side recognizes at some point the faulty course of its policy and abandons it, not in words but in deeds."
"This is fundamentally significant in order to pave the way for some prospects to improve bilateral relations," he said, adding that a simple cancellation of sanctions would not be sufficient enough for this purpose.