(Bloomberg) -- Russia's cancellation of talks to resolve a decades-old territorial dispute with Japan, which the Kremlin dismissed as a “ritual,” exposed a deepening rift between the two neighbors over Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who's now deputy head of the country's Security Council, delivered his terse assessment of the talks on his Telegram channel Tuesday. Medvedev said both sides were aware that talks over four islands -- known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan -- were going nowhere.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had earlier said that it would halt negotiations with Japan on a peace treaty to officially end a conflict dating back to World War II. The move followed Tokyo's decision to impose unprecedented sanctions over President Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine.
“The current situation all stems from Russia's invasion of Ukraine,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told parliament Tuesday, adding that halting the talks was “unjust and absolutely unacceptable.”
Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi later told reporters there was no change to Japan's basic policy of seeking to resolve the island dispute and agree to a peace treaty. He said an official protest over Russia's action had been conveyed to the country's ambassador, Mikhail Galuzin.
How Ukraine War Fuels Japan's Island Feud With Russia: QuickTake
Japan has followed the U.S. and Europe and levied sanctions in response to the invasion, which Kishida has condemned as “barbaric.” Tokyo has stripped Russia of its most-favored nation trade status and frozen the assets of dozens of individuals and groups, among other measures.
The Soviet Union seized the disputed islands in the final days of World War II, expelling thousands of Japanese residents. The two countries never sealed a treaty ending the war and have wrangled for decades over the territories.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sought to build ties with Putin in a bid to resolve the dispute, with the two leaders holding 25 meetings between 2012 and 2020. The talks made little progress and Russia later toughened its stance, introducing constitutional changes that made it illegal to surrender any part of its territory.
Those changes mean the talks have lost all meaning, Medvedev added, saying Russia should now “persistently work on developing the Kurils.”
Russia has sailed flotillas of warships near Japan's coast in recent months. Earlier in March, Japan's military said a Russian military helicopter made a brief incursion into its airspace close to the disputed area, prompting it to scramble fighter jets.
During a meeting with Galuzin on Tuesday, Vice Foreign Minister Takeo Mori urged Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine and demanded that Russia drop any plans to take action against Japanese companies and individuals. “Russia's invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine is a unilateral change to the status quo by force and shakes the foundations of the international order,” Mori said.
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