Russia & Japan: Disputed Encounter

Russia's coast guard fired on a Japanese fishing boat within Japan's northern waters Friday and took the boat back into Russian waters, government officials in Tokyo said.

In Moscow, the ITAR-Tass news agency said a Russian patrol boat came across a fishing boat in Russian territorial waters with its name and number concealed.

The boat tried to escape and avoid inspection, ITAR-Tass said. "The intruder was shelled by the Russian border guards when it attempted to escape from the Russian economic zone into neutral waters," the Pacific region border-guards press center was quoted as saying.

According to the Interfax news agency, the Russian border guards pursued the fishing boat into Japan's economic zone.

Yuko Kumagai, a spokeswoman for the Japan coast guard, said the mast and dining room area of the Japanese fishing boat, called the No. 7 Daitokumaru, were hit.

None of 20 crew members aboard the boat, which belongs to Nitta fishing company, was hurt in the shooting, according to an initial report from the boat. The coast guard has since lost contact with the boat.

Through the Russian Embassy in Tokyo, Japan demanded Russia immediately return the people on the boat as well as give an explanation for what happened, a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity. Japan has not received a reply from Moscow, he said.

Japan's coast guard sent three aircraft and four patrol boats to the scene, 60 miles south of cape of Ochiishi on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, but were forced to return when the boat entered Russian waters late Friday, said coast guard spokesman Shinichiro Takitsu.

The area is geographically separated from a group of disputed islands seized by Soviet forces at the end of World War II.

Both sides claim historical ownership of the disputed islands, which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories.

The stalemate over the islands has prevented the two sides from concluding a peace treaty and has stunted relations. There have been occasional arrests and shootings at Japanese fishing boats by Russian patrols because of the disagreement.