HongWu
BANNED
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2009
- Messages
- 2,604
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
- Location
Two Russian fighter jets breach Japanese airspace | South China Morning Post
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 Japans new prime minister said he wants to find a mutually acceptable solution to a decades-old territorial row between the countries.
Japans foreign ministry lodged a formal protest over the incursion by a pair of Russian Su-27 fighters at about 3.00pm local time.
Today, around 3.00pm, military fighters belonging to Russian Federation breached our nations airspace above territorial waters off Hokkaidos 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.
Abes 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 the second world war 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 told a government-backed rally of around 2,000 former islanders and their descendants in Tokyo.
Soviet forces seized the isles, which stretch out into rich fishing waters off the northern coast of Hokkaido, in the dying days of the second world war and drove out Japanese residents.
The islands were later re-populated by Russians but remain a poor and undeveloped part of the country.
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 Japans new prime minister said he wants to find a mutually acceptable solution to a decades-old territorial row between the countries.
Japans foreign ministry lodged a formal protest over the incursion by a pair of Russian Su-27 fighters at about 3.00pm local time.
Today, around 3.00pm, military fighters belonging to Russian Federation breached our nations airspace above territorial waters off Hokkaidos 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.
Abes 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 the second world war 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 told a government-backed rally of around 2,000 former islanders and their descendants in Tokyo.
Soviet forces seized the isles, which stretch out into rich fishing waters off the northern coast of Hokkaido, in the dying days of the second world war and drove out Japanese residents.
The islands were later re-populated by Russians but remain a poor and undeveloped part of the country.
