MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) - Japan's Ambassador to Russia Issei Nomura has approached Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a request that the Japanese fishing boat arrested November 2 be released, the Japanese embassy in Moscow said Friday.
The boat was arrested near the coast of Kunashir, the southernmost of Russia's Kuril Islands north of Japan, four of which have been the center of a Russian-Japanese dispute since the end of World War II. Five crewmembers were sent to a detention center in Yuzhno-Kurlisk.
Lavrov promised the ambassador he would try to solve this problem.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Russian border guards found illegal catch on the vessel.
The Russian-Japanese 1998 intergovernmental agreement stipulates that Japanese fishermen may catch certain fish species and laminaria in the Russian territorial waters in certain seasons.
