Moscow worries about Joint Tokyo-US drill near Russian border

A diplomat from the Japanese embassy in Moscow was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry on December 17. The Russian side expressed concern over the Japanese-US joint military drills near the Russian border, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday, according to TASS.

"Concern was expressed to the Japanese diplomat over the Japanese-US naval drills that began on December 6 near the Island of Hokkaido. It was stressed that these drills in the exact proximity to the Russian border, their scale, and spectrum of operations to be drilled make Russia consider these maneuvers as a serious challenge and a potential threat to our country’s security in the Far East," she said.

"The Russian side will continue to keep a close eye on such activities, which indicate Tokyo’s tenacious unwillingness to take practical steps to reckon with Russia’s security concerns," she stressed.

According to Zakharova, the Japanese diplomat was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry over an exhibition dedicated to the Southern Kuril Islands that opened in Tokyo in early December.

"It was stressed that despite the Russian foreign ministry’s official warning over a similar event in 2020, the Japanese organizers ventured this provocative step again. And again, they found no room among the exhibits to display such documents as the 1945 Instrument of Surrender, under which Japan undertook ‘to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith,’ the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, where Tokyo waived its claims to the Kuril Islands, and the United Nations Charter, which irreversibly enshrined our country’s sovereignty over the islands," she noted.

JB/PR