Russia on Tuesday announced the suspension of the 1998 agreement with Japan on fishing near the Kuril Islands.
In a statement on its official website, the ministry said that the step was taken because Tokyo violated its obligations under the agreement -- started delaying payments and stopped providing technical support to Russia's far eastern Sakhalin region, in return for which Moscow annually allocated a fishing quota for Japan.
"In the current situation, we are forced to make a decision to suspend the implementation of the 1998 agreement until the Japanese side fulfills all its financial obligations," the ministry said.
Russia and Japan have had a long-term unresolved dispute over the Kuril Islands since the end of World War II.
At the 1945 Yalta Conference, the Soviet Union agreed to start military operations on the eastern front under an agreement with its western allies, and in exchange, received some Japanese territories, including the Kuril Islands.
After the war, however, with the start of the Cold War, supported by Western countries, Japan rejected the Soviet Union's sovereignty over the islands.
The countries still have a territorial dispute over what Moscow calls the Southern Kuril Islands – a set of four islets controlled by Russia, which Japan identifies as the Northern Territories.
Due to the dispute, Russia and Japan have never signed a peace treaty and are technically still at war. As both sides claim the territories, the question of the Kurils' sovereignty remains uncertain.
Tokyo regularly protests visits of Russian officials to the islands.
Russian authorities fear the possible deployment of US missile systems on the islands if they are returned to Japan, creating a direct military threat to Russia.
