Moscow, Feb 20 Japan has taken an unfriendly position toward Russia, making any agreements between the two countries unlikely under current conditions, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
"Tokyo is taking an unfriendly stance toward our country, so, of course, under these circumstances, it's unlikely that any agreements can be reached without changing the modalities of our relations," Peskov said, quoted by RIA Novosti.
Earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, speaking in a policy address in the lower house of parliament, said Japan intends to conclude a peace treaty with Russia despite the strained state of bilateral ties.
Relations between Russia and Japan have long been overshadowed by the absence of a formal peace treaty after World War II, Xinhua news agency reported. After Japan introduced several rounds of sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on March 21, 2022 that Moscow would suspend peace treaty negotiations with Tokyo.
Meanwhile, South Korea on Friday protested Japan's renewed territorial claims to the islets lying halfway between the two countries, called Dokdo by South Korea and Takeshima by Japan.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that the South Korean government strongly protests Japan's reiteration of unjust territorial claims to Dokdo in the foreign policy speech, delivered by its foreign minister to the Diet.
The ministry called for an immediate withdrawal of such claims, making it clear that Japan's unjust claims will have no impact whatsoever on South Korea's sovereignty over Dokdo.
It reaffirmed that South Korea will firmly respond to any provocations by Japan, stressing that Japan should realize that the repeated unjust claims over Dokdo, which is clearly an integral part of the South Korean territory historically, geographically and under international law, will be in no way conducive to building a future-oriented relationship between Seoul and Tokyo.
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