Japan has conveyed its concerns about military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang to Russia in light of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first visit to North Korea in 24 years earlier this week, Japanese and Russian officials said.
Masashi Nakagome, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s European Affairs Bureau, delivered the message on Friday when he met Lyudmila Vorobyova, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Third Asian Department, in Moscow.
The meeting came after Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a new treaty on a strategic partnership between their countries in Pyongyang on Wednesday.
Vorobyova told Nakagome that Japan’s protest efforts are categorically unacceptable. She explained the Putin government’s goal of creating a new security structure on the Eurasian continent.
Also at the meeting, Nakagome reiterated Japan’s demand for an immediate halt to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and requested an early resumption of visits to family graves on disputed islands in the Pacific Northwest by former Japanese residents. The Russian-occupied islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan, were conquered from Japan by the Soviet Union in the final days of World War II.
In the spring of 2022, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that negotiations with Japan to conclude a peace treaty to formally end the two countries’ hostilities in World War II would be suspended after Tokyo imposed sanctions imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this month, Putin said the conditions for continuing negotiations have now not been met, blaming Japan for the stalled talks.
Russia announced that the meeting between Nakagome and Vorobyova took place at the request of the Japanese side. The fact that the talks have materialized suggests that Russia is willing to maintain some level of dialogue with Japan even amid deteriorating bilateral relations.
