Russia said on Sunday it will not hold annual talks with Japan on renewing a pact that allows Japanese fishermen to operate near disputed islands, saying Japan has taken anti-Russian measures.
The islands, off the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, are known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories and have been at the core of decades of tension between the neighbors.
“In the context of the anti-Russian measures taken by the Japanese government … the Russian side informed Tokyo that it could not agree on the holding of intergovernmental consultations on the implementation of this agreement,” the RIA state news agency reported, citing Russia’s foreign ministry.
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