Japan lodges protest against Russia over upcoming firing drills near South Kurils

The Japanese government has expressed its objection to Russia regarding the scheduled live-fire military drills close to the South Kuril Islands, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Monday. 

Moscow informed Tokyo of the firing drills near the Kunashir Island on Tuesday, the official said at a press conference. 

"In this regard, we have protested to Russia through diplomatic channels. The strengthening of Russia's military presence in the Northern Territories is unacceptable and contradicts the government's position," he explained.

The Japanese Coast Guard has issued a warning about the possible danger of maritime navigation in the area in question. 

Japan lays claims to the Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and Habomai islands in Russia's Kuril Island chain, known in Russia as the Southern Kurils, citing the 1855 bilateral treaty on trade and borders. Moscow insists that its sovereignty over the islands, which became part of the USSR after WWII, is undisputed. 

In 1956, the Soviet Union and Japan signed a joint declaration in which Moscow agreed to consider the possibility of transferring the Habomai and Shikotan islands to Japan after the conclusion of a peace treaty, while Kunashir and Iturup islands were not mentioned in the document, which the Soviet Union expected to put an end to the dispute. Japan, however, considered it only as part of the solution to the issue and did not give up its claims to all the islands. 

Subsequent negotiations never resulted in a peace treaty. Serious opposition arose from the United States, which is believed to have threatened to harden the process of returning Okinawa under the Japanese sovereignty if Japan agreed to the transfer of only two of the four Kuril Islands. 

In 2018, Japan and Russia agreed to speed up negotiations on the peace treaty based on the 1956 Japanese-Soviet Joint Declaration