Japan pressed Russia to free detained Hokkaido Shimbun journalist Yuki Imai and grant consular access at Oct. 20 talks in Moscow, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said, after Tokyo said a visit deadline had passed.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry said Kimitake Nakamura, its top diplomat for Europe, met Lyudmila Vorobyova, who heads a Russian Foreign Ministry department handling much of East Asia.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it detained an unnamed Japanese national on Sakhalin and accused that person of gathering information about Russian defenses for Japanese intelligence. Russia’s Foreign Ministry identified Imai as the detainee. Japan denies the espionage accusation. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has said Japan does not conduct spying in Russia.
A bilateral protocol sets a two-to-four-day window for consular visits, depending on where a person is held. Japan said the four-day deadline applicable to Imai had passed without a visit. Japanese officials have sought access to assess his health and hear his account of the detention.
Kihara said the diplomats also discussed the broader relationship. Japan and Russia have a decades-old territorial dispute over Pacific islands near Sakhalin, and Japan has imposed sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine.
