Japan Asks Russia to Return 6 Crewmen and Seized Fishing Boat

June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Japan today asked Russia to return six Japanese crewmen and their fishing vessel seized in the Sea of Okhotsk yesterday, the Foreign Ministry said.

Russian border guards yesterday stopped and searched the 30- ton Mantai Maru No. 52 in the Sea of Okhotsk, 120 kilometers (about 75 miles) off Cape Notori, in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Russia said the boat entered Russia's exclusive economic zone before returning to Japanese waters where it was seized, said an official in the press department of Japan's foreign ministry who asked not to be identified.

The vessel was stopped near four islands that Soviet forces seized at the close of World War II. Japan wants them back, and the dispute has blocked signing of a peace treaty that would formally end hostilities between the two countries and open the way for closer economic ties and Japanese investment in Russia.

Russian border guards entered Japan's economic zone, seized the fishing boat and towed it to a port near Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the Russian authorities told Japan, according to the foreign ministry official.

Japanese diplomats in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk asked Russian authorities for more information, the official said.

Russian authorities captured four Japanese ships last year in the Hokkaido area, including the Sea of Okhotsk, the Japan Coast Guard said on its Web site. They captured one ship in 2003 and six in 2002.

Not Responding

Russian border guards and the crewmen of the vessel did not respond to repeated radio calls from ships and planes that the Japanese Coast Guard dispatched yesterday, said Takashi Sato, a coast guard official in Hokkaido.

Japan's Coast Guard sent three ships and two planes to the area to confirm that the boat was searched, Sato said. They could not determine whether the fishing boat had entered Russia's economic zone, Sato said.

Crew members called the boat owner around 4 a.m. today to say all aboard are safe, Sato said.

Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, and his Japanese counterpart, Nobutaka Machimura, failed to fix a date for a visit to Tokyo by President Vladimir Putin amid the dispute over control of four islands, Japan's chief government spokesman Hiroyuki Hosoda said last week.

Putin last year agreed on the visit when he met Koizumi at the Group of Eight summit in the U.S. Koizumi later angered the Russian leader when he boarded a Japanese Coast Guard vessel for a look at the four islands called the Southern Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.

South Korean and Japanese coast guard members were locked in a 36-hour standoff last week after a fishing boat from South Korea entered Japan's territorial waters.

Their boats were lashed to the fishing boat as both sides tried to tow it into their own waters before South Korea admitted entering Japanese territory. The Japanese released the boat after the admission.

To contact the reporter on this story: Issei Morita in Tokyo at  imorita@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 9, 2005 00:46 EDT
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