E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSTOKYO -- Two Russian fighter jets briefly entered Japan's airspace near the northern island of Hokkaido on Thursday, prompting Japan to scramble combat fighters and lodge a protest, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.
It was the first such intrusion in five years, a ministry official said. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is expected to visit Moscow later this month to discuss territorial matters.
Thursday was Japan's "Northern Territories Day", when rallies are traditionally held calling for the return of disputed islands off Hokkaido.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev landed on the remote island chain in July, prompting protests from Tokyo.
Medvedev's trip to the disputed islands in Russia's Far East -- known as the Southern Kuriles in Russia but as the Northern Territories in Japan -- prompted Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to complain.
Unlike Japan's dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea, which are near potentially vast maritime oil and gas reserves, the feud with Russia has more to do with the legacy of World War Two.
Soviet soldiers seized the islands at the end of the war and the territorial row has weighed on diplomatic relations ever since, precluding a formal peace treaty.
Related:
Japan's new PM vows tighter ties with US
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Leave a Comment:
This part of the world is where the greatest potential of world wide conflict may be greatest. China is feeling like a world power and that it has the right to those islands, we may support Japan but time is on Chinas side. There is no doubt that with our budget woes and China's economic success that Chinas influence will grow while ours will decrease. We should support Japan but not make China a enemy either, hard balancing act.
Japan has military aircraft? Has anyone notified Pearl Harbor?
China and US are economic competitors, never enemies of war. How many wars is China in now and in WWII? Japan tried invading China, China entered in WWII
China has invaded Vietnam - 17+times...
Vietnam has handed China their A$$ - 17+times...
China has invaded Tibet several times and has OCCUPIED Tibet since 1949...
China is currently in border disputes with; Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, Burnei, etc...
China currently controls; Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Cambodia. This was due to Military & Political intervention...
Any country needs a strong middle class to survive. China will have to become more like the US to maintain its status. So by the time if and when they do take over, they will not be scary China at that time.
I still love Manga, and Anime :)
I will keep this simple. Putin and his resurgent nationalism are bad news for the whole World including Russia.
Russia has millions of square miles of territory, it's not like they need these islands.
But - the rules change if we are dealing with the US of A !!!
Japan started aggression in WWII, it lost the war and the islands. It is like Israel and the Golan Heights claimed by Syria; the winner takes it all. Japan can protest and has been protesting since, it is irrelevant.
No wonder the bias! This article was wriiten by a Japanese!!! But if it is by an America, it would be more balanced!
Have you no shame Japan government? Japan has denie, Before Pearl Harbour, from the advanced of Shanghai to Nanking, the Imperial Japanese Army murdered 500,000 civilians and disarmed soldiers. Women, children and even the pregnant were not spared, they were raped and killed. According to a testimony delivered by missionary Ralph L. Phillips to the U.S. State Assembly Investigating Committee, he was "forced to watch while the Japs disembowled a Chinese soldier" and "roasted his heart and liver. and ate them. On August 15, 1951 and September 18, 1951, China published statements denouncing the San Francisco F Treaty, stating that it was illegal because China was not invited to participate in the drafting and signing of the 1951 Treaty despite being one of the main victims of the Japanese aggression. The evidence for Chinese sovereignty over the Diaoyu islands are quite compelling. The most interesting evidence is emerging from old Japanese government
documents and suggests that Japan in effect stole the islands from China in 1895 as booty of war. Adding to that. The San Francisco Treaty of 1951 says Japan has adminisatration not sovereignty of the islands. So why is the Japanese government being so sneaky nationalizing some of the islands by buying them from a private Japanese owner whom they sold them to in the first place. Very recently, the PM of Japan Shinzo Abe visited the war shrine to honor Class A WWII war criminals. And he said it was ok that Japan colonized Korea, and that the enslavement of Korean women as sex slaves was ok. And he even whitewashed their war crimes in textbooks. Japan committed horrible atrocities. Unlike Germany, they deny what they did and never ompensate the victims. Can you imagine Merkel honoring Hitler??? Japan is still a bullying. Can you imagine when Al qeada killed 3000 innocence and America stand by and do nothing?
Thanks for the historic information. Japan was very wrong before, during and after US involvement in WW 2. What does that have to do with the Russian flexing their muscles NOW? The Japanese are now are allies and trading partners.
I read many Japanese reporter do fair and balance report. But not this guy, Takenaka.
His words:
"Unlike Japan's dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea, which are near potentially vast maritime oil and gas reserves, the feud with Russia has more to do with the legacy of World War Two.
This article is about Russia, not China. And military jets violating another country's airspace is ALWAYS a reason for alarm, no matter what happened seventy years ago. Especially when the incursion is so blatantly timed as a middle finger from one country to the other, not a simple misunderstanding.
American officials squirm. As the Chinese and U.S. economies become more interdependent.
The Japan government earned little respected in the region and hides behind the US in a hyprocratic governing principle. On one hand written by this Japanese reporter that the northern island of Hokkaido belongs to Japan since the early 19th century and Russia invaded these Island, so it belong to them not Russia.
Robert, you should find a copy editor. I am not sure what you want to say.
Robert just really doesnt like the Japanese.
So blatantly obvious, Shinzo Abe, his grand father, Nobusuke Kishi, and his granduncle, Eisaku Sato committed Japan's war crimes during its brutal aggression in WWII against China and other Asian neighbors, including its unprecedented military sexual slavery and many of those crimes against humanity. Or else why Shinzo Abe would shamelessly go so far to deny the crime of his own family by rallying his people in denial and even change their history text books and now even try the media and the world. But I guess he did not expect social media to be so prominent to shine the light on the facts.
True! I read many Japanese reporters do fair and balance report. But not this guy, Takenaka.
His words:
"Unlike Japan's dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea, which are near potentially vast maritime oil and gas reserves, the feud with Russia has more to do with the legacy of World War Two."
Robert Japan was bad yes. But now China is way worse in terms of human rights abuses, so Im gunna side with Japan now. Sorry.
I hope the American media don't get such into this Japan government's play of the "US against Russia and China stuff". The Japan government earned little respected in the region and hides behind the US in a weird governing principle. On one hand written by this Japanese reporter that the northern island of Hokkaido belongs to Japan since the early 19th century and Russia invaded these Island, so it belong to them not Russia. Then on the other hand, the evidence for Chinese sovereignty over the Diaoyu islands are quite compelling. The most interesting evidence is emerging from old Japanese government documents and suggests that Japan in effect stole the islands from China in 1895 as booty of war. No country in the region will stand up for Japan to help them with their Hokkaido/Diaoyo hyprocracy. And the US media and Americans get sucked into a bad ally tartnishing their Americans Brand around this region.
No one cares about your hatred for Japan Robert.
Monkey killing monkey killing monkey
Over pieces of the ground.
I have heard this before.
Japenis are picking a fight first with the Koreans, then the Chinese and now the Russians.
When are they going to stop claiming something that does not belong to them.
After WWII the USA and other Allies controlled the Japanese territories...
Japan surrendered to the Allies on August 14, 1945, when the Japanese government notified the Allies that it had accepted the Potsdam Declaration.
Under the final plan, SCAP was given direct control over the main islands of Japan (Honshū, Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyūshū) and the immediately surrounding islands, while outlying possessions were divided between the Allied Powers as follows:
The 1951 treaty stated that Japan must give up all claims to the Kuril islands,[2] but it also does not recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over the Kuril Islands.[3] Furthermore, Japan currently claims that at least some of the disputed islands are not a part of the Kuril Islands, and thus are not covered by the treaty.[4]
The San Francisco Peace Treaty signed on September 8, 1951 marked the end of the Allied occupation. Returning part of the Ryukyu islands in 1953, the Bonins in 1968, and Okinawa in 1972...
These islands belong to Russia. Japan lost the war. The Russians should make a memorial to all the people butchered by the Japanese on these islands and welcome Japanese tourists. This way the people of Japan will learn of the war crimes their government committed. As of today, the truth of WWII is not taught in Japanese schools. The people should learn what happens when you worship an emporer as a God.