【英语国际】日本召回驻俄大使

A territorial spat between Japan and Russia intensified Tuesday as Tokyo said it would recall its ambassador to Moscow a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited a disputed island in the Russian Far East.

Mr. Medvedev's visit, the first by a Russian or Soviet leader, has rocked the five-month-old government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, already struggling to manage Japan's bilateral relationship with China and the U.S.

Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said Tokyo's decision to order Ambassador Masaharu Kono to return home on a temporarily basis is aimed at information gathering. He didn't say whether it was intended as a protest against the visit.

Reigniting a long-simmering dispute between the two nations, Mr. Medvedev paid a visit Monday to one of the group of small islands just north of Hokkaido, known as the Northern Territories in Japan and as the Southern Kurils in Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that he spoke with Mr. Medvedev, who said he plans to visit other islands in the group, though he didn't say when that might happen.

The row comes at a particularly inconvenient time for Mr. Kan, as he prepares to host his first major international gathering since taking office: next week's summit meeting for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nations. Mr. Medvedev is expected to attend the meeting'' scheduled for Nov. 13-14 in Yokohama.

Russian officials brushed off the Japanese ambassador recall, blaming Tokyo for escalating the conflict.

'All of our previous signals that we are interested in normal neighborly relations with Japan weren't recognized by Tokyo,' Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the International Affairs Committee in the lower house of parliament, told Russian news agencies. 'Moreover, they were wrongly interpreted and seen almost as signs of Russian weakness.'

Mr. Kosachev said the impact of the conflict on Russo-Japanese relations shouldn't be dramatized, noting that parliament isn't planning to make any official statement on the issue and that President Medvedev plans to go ahead with his visit to Japan for the APEC summit this month.

Senior Russian officials dropped plans to travel to Tokyo this month for a business forum, but officials denied the moves were linked to the island dispute.

周二，俄罗斯总统梅德韦杰夫（Dmitry Medvedev）视察俄罗斯远东地区争议岛屿后一天，日本说将会召回驻莫斯科大使，此举导致日俄两国之间的领土争端进一步升级。

梅德韦杰夫是首位视察这一岛屿的俄罗斯或前苏联领导人，刚上任五个月的日本首相菅直人（Naoto Kan）的政府已经陷入与中国和美国的双边关系泥潭中，俄总统的此次视察使日本面临更大压力。

日本外务大臣前原诚司（Seiji Maehara）说日本做出暂时召回驻俄大使河野雅治（Masaharu Kono）的决定旨在采集信息。他并未表明此举是否意在抗议俄总统的视察。

梅德韦杰夫周一前往日本北海道北的一个小岛视察，重新点燃了两国长久以来的领土之争。日本称这些岛屿为北方四岛，俄罗斯称之为南千群岛。

俄罗斯外交部长拉夫罗夫（Sergei Lavrov）周二说，他与梅德韦杰夫有过交谈，梅德韦杰夫说还计划视察这一群岛的其他岛屿，但并未说明视察时间。

对菅直人来说，这一问题来的真不是时候，他正为任职以来首次主持重大国际会议做准备：将于下周，也就是11月13至14日召开的亚太经合组织（Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation）峰会。梅德韦杰夫也将参加。

俄罗斯官员对日本召回驻俄大使不予理会，指责日本使矛盾激化。

俄罗斯国家杜马国际事务委员会主席科萨切夫（Konstantin Kosachev）对俄罗斯新闻媒体说，我们之前一直发出信号表示希望与日本保持正常的邻国关系，但日本并未接受这些信号，相反，他们进行错误的解释，把这些看做是俄罗斯软弱的表现。

科萨切夫说，日俄关系争端的影响不应被放大化，议会不准备就此事做任何官方声明，梅德韦杰夫将按照原计划于本月赴日参加APEC峰会。

俄罗斯高级官员取消了本月前往东京参加商务论坛的计划，但官员们否认此举与岛屿争端有关。