Russia scraps visa-free visits to islands disputed with Japan

Russia has scrapped an agreement with Japan to allow Japanese former residents to visit disputed islands off Hokkaido without visas, triggering a protest Tuesday from Tokyo as tensions between the two nations remain high over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian government released a document Monday signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin regarding its unilateral withdrawal from the agreement, a decision that a Russian lawmaker attributed to Japan’s participation in Western sanctions against Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

Under the reciprocal program, visas are also waived for travel to Japan by residents of the Russian-held, Japan-claimed islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia.

Later Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned Russia’s action, saying it is “totally unacceptable.”

Kishida said that Tokyo has lodged a protest against Moscow, adding that it is impossible for Japan to carry out the exchange program with Russia under such circumstances.

Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Japan has yet to be informed by Russia about the decision.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February, Japan and other members of the Group of Seven industrialized nations have been enforcing sanctions, including freezing the assets of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country’s central bank.

The withdrawal from the visa-free travel program “followed as a response to the illegal sanctions pressure exerted by the Japanese government and its joining the West’s Russophobic policy,” Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the international committee of the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament.

Meanwhile, the document signed by Mishustin did not refer to former residents’ visits to the graves of their ancestors in the islands, which started in 1964 from a humanitarian stance, although this is one of the three categories under the visa-free program.

The dispute over the islands; Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group has prevented the two countries from signing a postwar peace treaty.

The row stems from the seizure of the territory by the Soviet Union, Russia’s predecessor state, in the weeks following Japan’s World War II surrender on Aug. 15, 1945.

In another reaction to Japan’s sanctions on Russia, Moscow announced in March the suspension of negotiations for a postwar peace treaty with Japan and its withdrawal from joint economic activities with Tokyo on the disputed islands.

The travel programs for the four islands, including visa-free visits, have been suspended since 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Moscow’s decision disappointed former residents of the islands, with one of them, Sadao Furubayashi, saying it will make it more difficult for him to visit his hometown on Kunashiri Island again.

“I wonder how many times we have to get pushed around,” Furubayashi, 83, who currently lives in Nemuro in eastern Hokkaido, said after returning from fishing early in the morning.

Hirotoshi Kawata, 87, a native of one of the Habomai islets, said he had been longing for the resumption of the island visit project and that he never expected Russia to unilaterally scrap the agreement.

“Peaceful resolution of the territorial issue has only got further away,” Kawata said.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES