TOKYO — Two Russian fighters violated Japanese airspace Thursday, Tokyo's defense ministry said, prompting Japan to scramble its own warplanes in what was reported to be the first such incident in five years. The planes were detected off the northern island of Hokkaido for just over a minute, shortly after Japan's new prime minister said he wanted to find a “mutually acceptable solution” to a decades-old territorial row between the two. Japan's Foreign Ministry lodged a formal protest over what it said was an incursion by a pair of Russian Su-27 fighters. “Today, around 3 p.m. (0600 GMT), military fighters belonging to Russian Federation breached our nation's airspace above territorial waters off Hokkaido's Rishiri island,” the ministry said. If confirmed, it would be the first breach of Japanese airspace by Russia since February 2008, according to Japanese media reports. However, Moscow denied any incursion had taken place, in a statement by the spokesman for the military command's eastern district, Roman Martov, given to Russian news agencies. “Flights by the air force of the Pacific Fleet take place regularly in this region, in strict adherence to the international rules, without violation of state borders,” it said. The alleged incident came hours after hawkish Japanese premier Shinzo Abe — who swept to power in December with pledges to get tough on diplomacy — offered apparently conciliatory comments toward Moscow over the Russian-administered Southern Kurils, known as the Northern Territories in Japan. Abe's tone was in marked contrast to his uncompromising stance on a dispute with Beijing over the sovereignty of a different set of disputed islands. “There is no change in my resolve to do everything I can towards sealing a peace treaty with Russia after resolving the issue of the Northern Territories,” Abe said. In December, Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to restart talks on signing a peace treaty formally ending the hostilities of World War II that has been stymied by the dispute. — Agencies
