Japan has lodged a strong protest with Russia after Vladimir Putin made his first visit to Iturup, one of the disputed islands controlled by Moscow but claimed by Tokyo.
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said the visit was unacceptable, reiterating Japan’s claim to the island, known as Etorofu in Japanese.
“We strongly protest against this visit. The Northern Territories, including Etorofu, are an inherent part of the territory of Japan, both historically and under international law,” Motegi said, according to The Japan Times.
It was Putin’s first visit to the disputed islands.
During his trip to Iturup, Putin visited the Yasny fish-processing plant, where he was shown locally produced seafood, including tuna and halibut, according to footage released by the Kremlin. He later travelled to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, where he met local residents.
The visit comes amid a decades-long territorial dispute between Japan and Russia over the southern part of the Kuril Islands. The islands, located northeast of Japan’s Hokkaido, were occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II and have remained under Moscow’s control since then.
Japan claims Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai islets, collectively referring to them as the Northern Territories. Tokyo bases its claim in part on the 1855 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, which established a border between Japan and Russia.
Russia, meanwhile, maintains that the Kuril Islands became part of the Soviet Union as a result of World War II and argues that its sovereignty over them is not subject to revision. The territorial dispute has prevented Japan and Russia from concluding a formal peace treaty following World War II.
Negotiations over a peace agreement continued intermittently for decades but were suspended by Moscow in 2022 after Japan imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
