Russia said Wednesday it regretted the death of a Japanese
fisherman in a clash with a Russian patrol boat but blamed the
Japanese side for the incident.
The crab fisherman was shot and killed near Kaigara Island, one
of several islands off the northeast tip of Hokkaido that are
claimed by both Russia and Japan.
Russian officials said the man, who remains unidentified, was
killed as he rushed to recover fishing tools aboard the 4.9-ton
crab fishing boat, No 31 Kyoshin Maru.
The shooting, linked to a 60-year-old territorial dispute,
prompted a series of angry statements between the two nations.
"The Russian Foreign Ministry expresses its deep regret in
connection with the death of one of the crew members," the ministry
said in a statement posted on its website www.mid.ru.
"It is clear that responsibility for this incident rests fully
and completely with those who were directly guilty, and also with
those representatives of the Japanese authorities who connive in
poaching by Japanese fishermen in Russian territorial waters," it
said.
The statement said the Japanese trawler was inside Russian
waters and that a Russian border patrol boat had caught it fishing
illegally.
"One of the crew members was fatally wounded, presumably by a
stray bullet when warning shots were being fired and during
dangerous maneuvers by the guilty vessel," it said.
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The statement added that Russian authorities had complained
repeatedly to Japan about fishing vessels operating illegally in
Russian waters. "Unfortunately, these warnings were not heeded,"
the foreign ministry said.
The trawler was near a group of islands that are the subject of
a 50-year-old territorial dispute between Moscow and Tokyo.
Japan's Foreign Ministry said it had demanded the immediate
release of the crabbing craft and its three other crew members.
About a dozen right-wing protesters dressed in pseudo-military
uniforms turned up in trucks with loudspeakers at Tokyo's Russian
Embassy, calling the shooting a murder.
A spokesman said Foreign Minister Taro Aso would call Russia's
acting ambassador to the ministry late Wednesday to reiterate
Tokyo's protest.
Earlier, a government source said the Russian action appeared to
have been a case of excessive use of force.
Russia's Interfax news agency said the border guards had fired a
warning shot into the air, and later found a Japanese man dead on
the boat with a bullet wound to the head.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi raised hackles in
Moscow in 2004 when he inspected the islands from a Japanese Coast
Guard vessel, and a meeting between Russian President Vladimir
Putin and Koizumi late last year achieved no major breakthroughs in
the dispute.
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(China Daily August 17, 2006)
