During a session of the Diet (Parliament), the Japanese cabinet chief said that his country maintains its will to reach a post-war peace treaty with Moscow to resolve the territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands.

The Kremlin’s decision is in response to the economic sanctions imposed by Japan since the start of the Russian special military operation in eastern Ukraine.

Russia “does not intend to continue the peace treaty talks with Japan, due to the impossibility of dealing with the signing of a fundamental document about the bilateral relations with a State that takes openly hostile positions and seeks to harm the interests of our country,” the official communique stated.

The withdrawal from the talks about the joint economic activities in the four islets north of Hokkaido, as well as the end of visa-free travel for Japanese citizens to the territories under dispute, are others of the measures announced by Moscow.

Tokyo, which has coordinated economic sanctions with the United States, the Group of Seven and other European countries, froze assets of 95 Russian individuals and companies, included President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexandr Lukashenko.

pgh/iff/acl/lcp