Moscow accuses Japan of using journalists for espionage

Moscow: Russia accused Japan on Wednesday of the widespread use of journalists for espionage, following the arrest last week of a Japanese reporter on spying accusations.

Russian authorities said last week that Japanese journalist Yuki Imai had been arrested on its Far East island of Sakhalin, near a disputed cluster of islands, accused of "conducting espionage activities on Russian territory".

Japan denies the allegations and has not yet been able to secure Imai's release.


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Asked about his case, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters Wednesday that it was not the first such case -- only "the first that we have made public".

"Journalists who come from Japan are not engaged in journalism," she charged.

The "dozens" of Japanese journalists accredited to work in Russia, she said, showed no interest in covering Russia journalistically.

"They were ordered not to get in touch, not to ask questions, not to participate in information events through Russian state bodies, in particular the foreign ministry," she alleged.

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"So what do such large numbers of Japanese journalists do in our country?" she asked.

"They are engaged in activities that are incompatible with the journalistic status."

Zakharova's comments came as Japan's foreign ministry said Wednesday that it had sent the country's top diplomat for Europe, Kimitake Nakamura, to Moscow to discuss Imai's release.

"We lodged a request... that calls for the earliest possible realisation of consular access to the Japanese national detained in Russia, as well as the individual's immediate release," Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told a media briefing on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has denied that Japan conducts spying activities in Russia, while Imai's newspaper, Hokkaido Shimbun, has stressed its independence from the government.

Tokyo has also summoned Russian Ambassador Nikolay Nozdrev to lodge a protest, while the foreign ministry has urged Moscow to give him "fair and impartial treatment".

The two countries have a decades-old dispute over the status of a string of islands in the Pacific Ocean, off the northeast coast of Japan and to the southwest of Sakhalin.

Japan has also placed sanctions on Russia over its aggression in Ukraine.

Russia has arrested several citizens of what it calls "unfriendly" countries in recent years, accusing them of working for Western intelligence services.