‘Absolutely Unacceptable’: Japan Erupts Over Putin’s Visit To Contested Island

Japanese heads of state responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit Thursday to an island that is disputed between the two nations.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said that the government strongly protests Putin’s visit to Iturup Island and said that he was only made aware of it that day. He added that the Northern Territories, including the island, are Japanese “both historically and under international law.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: CCP Intelligence Official Buys Building Steps From White House)

The island, also known in Japan as Etorofu, is part of the Kuril Islands chain and located around 90 miles from Hokkaido. Both Japan and Russia claim possession of four islands in the chain that stretches between the two nations.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said that she was also only made aware of Putin’s visit as it was happening, but that the Japanese government had petitioned the Kremlin to ensure that Putin would not visit the disputed territories since he mentioned potentially visiting them in 2024.

Takaichi also cited international law and history for why Iturup is Japanese, adding that Putin’s visit is “incompatible with Japan’s consistent position on the Northern Territories.”

“Moreover, it wounds the feelings of the Japanese people and is absolutely unacceptable,” Takaichi said. “I hope that the Russian side will take the gravity of this matter very seriously.”

The prime minister said that relations between the two nations had already been strained since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, and that despite Japan making “every possible effort” to quash anti-Russia sentiment within Japan, this stunt will make a recovery in relations more difficult.

A professor at Keio University in Tokyo, Michito Tsuruoka, told The New York Times that the visit suggests that there is no intention — particularly on the Russian side — to improve relations with Japan.

Putin had televised his visit to a fish processing plant on the island after observing Pacific Fleet exercises on a nearby cruiser, according to Russian state media.

Russia claims that these Northern Territories were taken by the Kremlin after Japan’s loss in World War II and even operates a military base on the island, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The island had been anciently inhabited by an Indigenous group known as the Ainu until Japanese traders and samurai began building seasonal fishing posts on the south of the island as Russian trappers arrived from the north throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

Japan would formally incorporate the islands in a treaty between the two countries, as tens of thousands of Japanese would build permanent residences there, leading to Ainu assimilation. Soviet forces would then occupy the territory by the end of World War II before forcibly deporting nearly all Japanese and recruiting workers from across the Union to repopulate the island.