A Japanese fisherman catches salmon off the coast of Okhotsk Kunashir Island. File photoYUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, June 8In the context of the growing deconstructivism of Japan in interstate relations on Sakhalin, they fully support a set of measures to counter the Russian Federation, including a ban on fishing for ABR near the southern Kuriles, Sergey Ponomarev, head of the Sakhalin branch of the Russian Geographical Society, told RIA Novosti. Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced the suspension of the implementation of the Russian-Japanese agreement 1998 year, which allowed Japanese fishermen to fish for marine biological resources within the quota allocated by the Russian side near the southern Kuriles. The decision was made due to the fact that in Tokyo they took a line to freeze the payments due under the agreement, the Russian ministry explained. The implementation of the agreement has been terminated until the Japanese side fulfills all its financial obligations. «Far Eastern fisheries, including those who fish in the area of the southern Kuril Islands, as well as specialists in the fishing industry who oversee international relations in the field of fisheries, were against the conclusion of such an Agreement from the very beginning. as one-sided and unbalanced in its tasks,” the interlocutor noted. According to Ponomarev, it follows from a number of articles of the 1998 Agreement, as well as the Memorandums, that Japanese fishing vessels are engaged in fishing for marine living resources in the territorial Russian waters of the southern Kuril Islands, essentially order, and even control themselves. The Agreement itself does not even mention that these are the territorial waters of the Russian Federation, in which the relevant legislative acts are in force. «Moreover, the 1998 Agreement is unbalanced, and in fact unequal, since Japan does not grant Russia the right to fish in its territorial waters,» — the Sakhalin scientist believes. The Kuril Islands is carried out on a significant sea area, which deprives domestic Kuril fishermen of the opportunity to conduct coastal fishing here with the supply of caught fish and seafood for processing by coastal fish processing factories. «The Sakhalin Regional Duma opposed the conclusion of the 1998 Agreement and its implementation six times (in 1997, 1998 , 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002),» Ponomarev stressed in conclusion.
