Two Russian fighter jets violated Japanese airspace on Thursday as Tokyo scrambled its own planes in response, the defence ministry said, reportedly the first such incident in five years.
The Russian planes were detected off the coast of northernmost Hokkaido island for just over a minute, shortly after Japan's new prime minister said he wants to find a ‘mutually acceptable solution’ to a decades-old territorial row between the countries.
Japan's foreign ministry lodged a formal protest over the incursion by a pair of Russian Su-27 fighters at about 3 pm.
‘Today, around 3 pm, military fighters belonging to Russian Federation breached our nation's airspace above territorial waters off Hokkaido's Rishiri island,’ the foreign ministry said.
It was the first breach of Japanese airspace by Russia since February 2008, according to Japanese media reports on Thursday.
The incident came hours after hawkish Japanese premier Shinzo Abe — who swept to power in December with pledges to get tough on diplomacy — offered apparently conciliatory comments toward Moscow over the Russian-administered Southern Kurils, known as the Northern Territories in Japan.
Abe's tone was in marked contrast to his uncompromising stance on a dispute with Beijing over the sovereignty of a different set of disputed islands. There is no change in my resolve to do everything I can towards sealing a peace treaty with Russia after resolving the issue of the Northern Territories,’ Abe said.
In December, Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to restart talks on signing a peace treaty formally ending the hostilities of World War II that has been stymied by the dispute.
‘In the telephone talks, I told President Putin I would make efforts to find a mutually acceptable solution so as to ultimately solve the issue of the Northern Territories,’ Abe said.
The Russian planes were detected off the coast of northernmost Hokkaido island for just over a minute, shortly after Japan's new prime minister said he wants to find a ‘mutually acceptable solution’ to a decades-old territorial row between the countries.
Japan's foreign ministry lodged a formal protest over the incursion by a pair of Russian Su-27 fighters at about 3 pm.
‘Today, around 3 pm, military fighters belonging to Russian Federation breached our nation's airspace above territorial waters off Hokkaido's Rishiri island,’ the foreign ministry said.
It was the first breach of Japanese airspace by Russia since February 2008, according to Japanese media reports on Thursday.
The incident came hours after hawkish Japanese premier Shinzo Abe — who swept to power in December with pledges to get tough on diplomacy — offered apparently conciliatory comments toward Moscow over the Russian-administered Southern Kurils, known as the Northern Territories in Japan.
Abe's tone was in marked contrast to his uncompromising stance on a dispute with Beijing over the sovereignty of a different set of disputed islands. There is no change in my resolve to do everything I can towards sealing a peace treaty with Russia after resolving the issue of the Northern Territories,’ Abe said.
In December, Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to restart talks on signing a peace treaty formally ending the hostilities of World War II that has been stymied by the dispute.
‘In the telephone talks, I told President Putin I would make efforts to find a mutually acceptable solution so as to ultimately solve the issue of the Northern Territories,’ Abe said.