Japanese FM surveys SKurile Islands staying on board a plane.

TOKYO, December 4 (Itar-Tass) -- Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji
Maehara surveyed on Saturday the "northern territories" (this is the way
the Russian South Kurile Islands are called in Japan), staying on board a
plane which remained in the air space of Japan.
Maehara is going to meet on Saturday the Japanese, who lived in the
South Kurile Islands at one time. He plans to explain to them "the
approach of the Japanese government to the development of diplomacy with
regard to Russia."
The trip made by Seiji Maehara for surveying the South Kurile Islands
was not aimed at demonstrating confrontation with Russia, a senior
official in the Japanese government told Itar-Tass. "The trip of the
foreign minister was planned long ago, but it was postponed because of his
strenuous working schedule. It has nothing to do with the recent visit of
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to the Kunashir Island. This is by no
means a counter measure. The Japanese foreign minister sincerely wishes to
develop an effective dialogue and relations with Russia," the Japanese
official said.
The Russian foreign ministry reported recently that Moscow had nothing
against the visual surveying of the Kurile Islands by Japanese
politicians. "We have no objections to Japanese politicians viewing from
afar, from their own territory, the beauty of our landscapes," said Alexei
Sazonov, deputy director of the information and pres department of the
Russian foreign ministry.
Members of the Japanese government regularly stage such "inspections"
of those territories from the sea or from the air. Part of the Kurile
Islands can be seen without binoculars in good weather from the area near
the city of Nemuro, in the north-eastern extremity of the Hokkaido Island.
Earlier this week Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan also expressed the
intention to survey the South Kurile Islands from Hokkaido in the near
future.
Seiji Maehara surveyed the South Kurile Islands in October 2009,
staying on board a patrol boat (that time he held the post of minister of
state lands and transport). After that he said that the islands "are under
illegal occupation" of Russia. The Russian foreign ministry responded with
a strongly worded indignant statement, describing Maehara's words as
"unacceptable, inappropriate and meaningless from the legal point of view."
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