The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan has presented a firm diplomatic complaint regarding the visit this Thursday of Russian President Vladimir Putin to one of the islands of the Kuril archipelago, a disputed area, emphasizing that it is Japanese territory both from a historical and legal point of view.
The Foreign Minister, Takeshi Mogi, has emphasized that the Northern Islands, as this group of islands is known in Japan, "are inherent territory" of the rest of the country "both from a historical point of view and by virtue of International Law," after Putin visited the island of Iturup this Thursday.
"The Government of Japan strongly protests this visit," concluded the minister in a brief note of condemnation of yet another episode of a prolonged territorial dispute that has prevented Tokyo and Moscow from concluding a definitive peace treaty after the end of World War II.
Putin has traveled this Thursday for the first time in person to Iturup, one of the four disputed islands, called Etorofu by Japan, in a gesture that Moscow interprets as a reaffirmation of its sovereignty over the archipelago, in a context of tension in which Tokyo, in addition to adhering to international sanctions against Russia, has intensified its joint military maneuvers with the United States in the Pacific.
The Russian president has been aboard the missile cruiser Varyag, the flagship of the Pacific Fleet, from which he has supervised naval exercises in the nearby region of Sakhalin and from where he has flown to Iturup to inspect the island's infrastructure and hold meetings with local residents.