New Delhi: Russia will suspend the implementation of an intergovernmental agreement with Japan on certain issues of cooperation in the area of catching marine living resources until Tokyo meets its financial commitments, the official spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, Tokyo sticks to freezing payments stipulated by the agreement, dragging its feet on signing the annual implementation document on providing non-repayable technical assistance to the Sakhalin Region, which is an integral element of the functioning of this intergovernmental agreement,” she said.
“In this situation, we are forced to take a decision on suspension of implementing the agreement of 1998 until the Japanese side meets all its financial commitments,” Zakharova added.
The Russian side consistently considered bilateral cooperation based on this agreement “as one of the major areas of Russian-Japanese ties in the fishing industry,” the Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman noted. “This agreement established on the basis of a balance of interests of the two countries considered, enabled Japanese fishermen to engage in fishing under the quota near the southern Kuril Islands of the Russian Federation allocated by the Russian side,” the diplomat said.
(Vinayak)