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Japan renews claim on Russia-held Kuril Islands in foreign policy report
- Tokyo had refrained from claiming ownership of the islands last year amid hopes that a deadlock in the territorial dispute would be broken
- The foreign ministry’s Diplomatic Bluebook also points to heightened tensions with South Korea and condemnation of Pyongyang
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Japan made an explicit claim to ownership of a group of Russian-held islands off Hokkaido in an annual foreign policy report released on Tuesday, after refraining from doing so last year amid hopes of breaking a deadlock in the territorial dispute.
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The disagreement has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty even 75 years after the end of the second world war.
In the 2020 edition of its Diplomatic Bluebook, Japan’s Foreign Ministry also pointed to heightened tensions with South Korea over trade controls and compensation for wartime labour, and condemned North Korea for continuing its ballistic missile tests in defiance of UN resolutions.
The report said the islands, which Japan calls its Northern Territories and Russia calls the Kuril Islands, are “under the sovereignty of Japan.”
It said the dispute over the islands, lying off Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido and straddling the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Okhotsk, is a matter of the “greatest concern”, and that efforts to reach an agreement would continue.
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