By RFE/RL
Tokyo: Japan says two Russian fighter jets have violated its
airspace, just hours after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he favored a
"mutually acceptable solution" to a territorial dispute with Russia.
Japan's Defense Ministry said Tokyo scrambled its own planes
in response after the intruders were detected off the coast of northernmost
Hokkaido island for about one minute on February 7.
The Foreign Ministry also lodged a formal protest with
Moscow.
A Russian military spokesman, Aleksandr Gordeyev, has denied
the Japanese claim in a statement to Russian news agency Interfax.
Earlier on February 7, Japanese Prime Minister Abe said he
was ready to do everything "toward sealing a peace treaty with Russia
after resolving the issue of the Northern Territories."
The Northern Territories is the Japanese name for the
Southern Kuriles, a group of islands seized by the Soviet Union from Japan in
the last days of World War II.
After occupying the islands, Moscow expelled its Japanese
population and brought in Russian citizens.
Russia and Japan have not signed a peace treaty formally
ending World War II hostilities.
Settling Dispute
Speaking before some 2,000 former islanders and their
descendants in Tokyo, Abe expressed hope that such a treaty could finally be
achieved.
"We are continuing negotiations with the fundamental
aim of settling the ownership issue of the four northern islands and concluding
a peace treaty with Russia," Abe said.
"On that basis, I have strong hopes that we will make
headway in our relationship with Russia and finally settle the Northern
Territories dispute."
Abe said he had expressed his position in telephone talks
with Russian President Vladimir Putin in December.
Abe's tone was in striking contrast to his uncompromising
stance on a dispute with China over the sovereignty of a different set of
disputed islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan
and the Diaoyus in China.
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