TOKYO, May 24. /TASS/. The Japanese Coast Guard has carried out firing drills in its territorial waters west of the Kunashir Island, part of the Kuril Islands, without prior warning, Yomiuri reported.
The guard fired 66 shots from a 13 mm machine gun and two flares and then realized that they had not issued an appropriate warning on their information resources on the eve of the shooting. The story says that the shooting was urgently stopped - there was no information about casualties or any damage as a result, there were no other vessels in the area at the time of the shooting. The Coast Guard department of the Nemuro City (the northern Hokkaido Prefecture) said they would hold additional safety training and promised to prevent such incidents in the future.
Japan has not received any notices or protests from Russia after the incident.
Moscow and Tokyo have been negotiating a peace agreement following the end of the Second World War since the middle of the last century. The main stumbling block is the disagreement over the rights to the southern part of the Kuril Islands. After the end of the war, the entire archipelago was incorporated into the Soviet Union, but Japan disputes the ownership of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of small uninhabited islands. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly said that Russian sovereignty over these territories, which has an appropriate international legal framework, is beyond doubt.