TOKYO, August 2. /TASS/. The Russian embassy in Tokyo received a note from the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s note over Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s trip to the southern Kuril Island of Iturup, an embassy official told TASS.

"We received Japan’s note and dismissed it. Japan did not lodge a protest, it was just an expression of dissatisfaction," the official said.

Earlier on Friday, the Japanese Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Tokyo deeply regretted Medvedev’s trip to Iturup. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed Japan’s protests against Russian officials’ visit to the southern Kuril Islands.

While commenting on Tokyo’s position, the Russian prime minister said that it caused Moscow no concern. He pointed out that the southern Kuril Islands were part of Russia’s Sakhalin region.

Dispute over Kurils

Since the mid-20th century, Russia and Japan have been holding consultations in order to clinch a peace treaty as a follow-up to World War II. The Kuril Islands issue remains the key sticking point since after WWII the islands were handed over to the Soviet Union while Japan laid claims to the four southern islands.

In November 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Singapore and agreed that the two countries would accelerate the pace of the peace negotiations based on the 1956 Joint Declaration. The document ended the state of war and said that the Soviet government was ready to hand Shikotan Island and a group of small islands called Habomai over to Japan on condition that Tokyo would take control of them once a peace treaty was signed.

However, after Japan and the United States had signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security in 1960, the Soviet Union withdrew its obligation to hand over the islands. A Soviet government’s memorandum dated January 27, 1960, said that those islands would only be handed over to Japan if all foreign troops were pulled out of the country.