OREANDA-NEWS  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan expressed its protest due to the fact that the Russian court declared lawful the confiscation of satellite phones by the Japanese delegation on the Kuril Islands. It is reported by Japan media.

It is noted that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not take a decision of the court, as it is "unacceptable from a legal point of view" of the Japanese side.

At the end of July 2018, Russian special services confiscated satellite phones from members of the delegation of officials from Japan, their relatives, and journalists. They came to the Kuril Islands to visit Japanese cemeteries.

In this regard, the government of Japan demanded the return of the phones. The representative of the far Eastern customs administration said that the customs officers seized them, as they were not declared, and there was no permission to import them.

The court in Yuzhno-Kurilsk considered reasonable confiscation in three of the six administrative cases. It is noted that the cases were initiated under the articles "non-Declaration in the prescribed form of goods subject to customs Declaration" (16.2 administrative Code) and "Non-compliance with prohibitions and restrictions on the import of goods into the customs territory of the Eurasian economic Union" (16.3 administrative Code). The representative noted that the phones will be transferred to Rosimushchestvo before the entry into force of the court decision.

The dialogue between Russia and Japan overshadows the absence of a peace Treaty for many years.

Japan claims the Islands of Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup, and Habomai, citing a bilateral Treatise on trade and borders of 1855. The return of the Islands to Tokyo set a condition for the conclusion of a peace Treaty with Russia, which at the end of the Second World War was never signed.