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Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zakharova commented on US Ambassador to Tokyo George Glass's statement recognizing Japan's sovereignty over the Southern Kuril Islands, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited.

Zakharova said there was “nothing fundamentally new” in the statement, noting that US diplomats had previously made statements offering unconditional support for Tokyo's claims to Russian territory.

Zakharova argued that the transfer of the Southern Kuril Islands to Russia was one of the binding outcomes of World War II under agreements between the Allied states and the Charter of the United Nations. She recalled that the United States and the Soviet Union fought on the same front against Japan during the final stages of the war.

Zakharova said that at the Yalta Conference on February 11, 1945, the Soviet Union agreed, at the request of the United States and Britain, to enter the war against militarist Japan, while Washington and London agreed to the transfer of the Southern Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union.

Zakharova said that after Japan signed the instrument of surrender on September 2, 1945, the first directive issued by General Douglas MacArthur excluded the islands from Japanese territory. “Russia's sovereignty and jurisdiction over them are not open to discussion,” she said.

Zakharova also argued that the US diplomat's remarks encouraged “revisionist and revanchist” tendencies in Japan and were causing growing concern among Japan's neighboring countries.