TOKYO, October 15. /TASS/. Russian Ambassador to Japan Nikolay Nozdrev believes Tokyo has no right to complain about the detention of a Hokkaido Shimbun journalist on suspicion of espionage, the embassy said in a statement following the envoy’s meeting with Kimitake Nakamura, director general of the European Affairs Bureau at the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
"The Russian ambassador to Japan strongly rejected Tokyo’s complaints over the detention by Russian law enforcement agencies in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk of a correspondent of the Japanese newspaper Hokkaido Shimbun," the statement reads.
Nozdrev "pointed out to Director General Nakamura the unacceptable situation where Japanese intelligence agencies establish 'cooperation' with individuals, including Japanese journalists accredited in Russia, to collect classified information with the goal of undermining Russia’s security and defense capability."
"[The envoy] emphasized that Russian competent authorities had repeatedly foiled such attempts. He also drew the other party’s attention to police footage showing the Japanese national being caught red-handed," the statement said. The Russian ambassador also stressed that "investigative activities in the case will be carried out in line with Russian laws."
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reported on October 13 that a correspondent for Japan’s Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk had been detained on suspicion of espionage. The journalist was apprehended in the Sakhalin Region shortly before his planned departure from Russia, and brought to Moscow. Moscow’s Lefortovsky District Court ordered that he be taken into custody. The Japanese Foreign Ministry said that it had summoned Russia’s ambassador to inquire about the journalist’s detention and protest the lack of information about the incident.