(Reuters) – Russia’s prosecutor general said on Friday it had banned a group campaigning for Japanese sovereignty over four disputed islands seized by the Soviet Union at the end of World War Two, amid rising tensions between Moscow and Tokyo.
The group – known as the League of Residents of Chishima and Habomai Islands – organised annual trips to the islands by their former Japanese residents and their descendants, thousands of whom were forced to leave after the war.
The four southernmost islands of the chain – all of which are administered by Russia – are claimed by Japan as its Northern Territories. The dispute has prevented the two sides from ever formally signing a peace treaty to end the war.
In a statement, the Russian prosecutor’s office declared the League of Residents “undesirable”, accusing it of “forming a negative opinion” about Russia and risking destabilisation on the island chain, which it refers to as the Kuril Islands.
“It was found that the activities of the foreign organisation are aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation…,” the prosecutor general’s office said.
The move comes amid fraught relations between Russia and Japan, which has joined its partners in the Group of Seven (G7) nations by imposing sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Tokyo lodged a protest with Moscow on Monday over exercises conducted by Russia’s Pacific Fleet near the disputed islands. The Kremlin brushed off the protest, saying the drills were in line with international law.
(Reporting by Caleb Davis and Felix Light, editing by Mark Trevelyan and Gareth Jones)
