Japan’s envoy to Russia faces being sacked after telling Tokyo that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would not visit a disputed island even after Moscow said the trip was imminent, reports said yesterday.
The Kuril Islands, just off the northern coast of Hokkaido, were seized by Soviet forces at the end of World War II, but the southernmost four islands are still claimed by Tokyo and the issue casts a cloud over Russian-Japanese relations.
Medvedev defied Japanese warnings and protests to visit the southernmost island, known as Kunashir in Russia or Kunashiri in Japan, on Nov. 1, in the first ever journey by a Russian leader to the territory.
It was the latest in a series of embarrassments over foreign policy for Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s government.
Even though Medvedev had said since late September that he would “soon” visit the island, -Japanese Ambassador Masaharu Kono reported to Tokyo that he did not believe it would go ahead, major Japanese media said.
Based on Kono’s reports, the Japanese government repeatedly said during October that it had no information suggesting Medvedev had a concrete plan to travel to the island.
Media reports suggested yesterday that Kono had paid for his misjudgment with his job.
Japan is preparing to appoint Chikahito Harada, a veteran Russia handler now serving as the Japanese ambassador in the Czech Republic, to replace Kono, said major newspapers including the Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun.
No official decision has been announced, but the personnel change could happen as early as January, according to major media, including the Asahi and national broadcaster NHK.
By naming a new ambassador to Russia, Japan hoped to improve its ability to collect information and to demonstrate Tokyo’s strong will to resolve the territorial issue, the Asahi said.
However, Moscow has become increasingly assertive over the Kurils.
Medvedev’s trip was followed by a visit from Igor Shuvalov, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s influential first deputy, who went to the same island, and another island called Iturup in Russia and Etorofu in Japan.
The Russian trips fueled Japanese domestic criticism of Kan, who voiced regret and lodged protests to Moscow.
The Japanese prime minister’s Russian difficulties are only the latest in a series of diplomatic blunders by Japan since he came to power in June, with the center-left government having to mend soured ties with the US and deal with a more assertive China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema