The Japanese Defense Ministry earlier said two Russian combat fighter jets briefly entered Japan`s airspace just off the northern island of Hokkaido.
Two Russian fighter jets violated Japanese airspace on Thursday with Tokyo scrambling jets in response, the defence ministry 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 with Russia and sign a long-delayed peace treaty with Moscow.
Japan’s foreign ministry lodged a formal protest over the incursion by a pair of Russian SU-27 fighters at about 3:00 pm local time (0600 GMT).
“Today, around 3:00 pm, military fighters belonging to Russian Federation breached our nation’s airspace above territorial waters off Rishiri island in Hokkaido,” the foreign ministry said.
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 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 WWII and drove out Japanese residents.
The islands were later re-populated by Russians but remain a poor and undeveloped part of the country.
Russian aviation of the Pacific navy has been performing scheduled flights in the area and no airspace violation took place, a Russian military spokesman told the press.
“Naval aviation flights by the Pacific Fleet in this area are conducted regularly in strict accordance with international regulations of using the airspace, without violation of other countries’ borders,” Roman Martov said.
Meanwhile, Tokyo lodged a protest saying two of its own combat jets were sent to scramble the violators which they identified as SU-27 aircraft.
A similar incident happened a year ago on February 8, 2012, when several Russian war planes flew close to Japanese territory. Japan admitted that the planes did not violate its airspace, but Japanese fighter jets were alerted.
On Thursday Japan marks the anniversary of an 1855 treaty which Japan says supports its claims over the Pacific island chain which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan terms the Northern Territories. The islands became Soviet territory after its victory in WWII, but Japan did not agree with this division. The over 60-year-old dispute is ongoing.
Abe’s comments come as tensions between Japan and China have intensified over the sovereignty of the Tokyo-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, claimed by Beijing as the Diaoyus.
On Tuesday Japan said a Chinese frigate had locked its weapons-targeting radar onto a Japanese military vessel, the first time the two nation’s navies have locked horns in a dispute that flared badly last summer.
Abe on Wednesday called the radar move “dangerous” and “provocative”. The Japanese prime minister has repeatedly said there is no room for negotiation over the East China Sea islands. But he has also stressed the row should not harm overall ties with Beijing, an important trading partner.
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