More than 4,000 people rallied in Russia’s Far East on Saturday in support of the country’s claim to the disputed Kuril islands in the Pacific Ocean, police said.
Demonstrators in the port town of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk called for Russia to take a tougher stance in the decades-long dispute with Japan over the four islands, which were occupied by Soviet troops at the end of World War II.
The dispute has stopped the two countries from signing a peace treaty.
On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Japan was determined to “move ahead with negotiations.”
He was speaking during a protest rally was held in Tokyo to demand the return of the islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sparked a diplomatic row with Tokyo in November 2010 by making the first ever visit by a Russian leader to the islands.
He later said Russia would increase its military presence there. Japan’s then prime minister Naoto Kan called Medvedev’s visit an “inexcusable rudeness.”
