Tokyo may have triggered a spy row with Russia to signal its frustration with President Vladimir Putin's hard-line stance on a long-running territorial dispute, reports said Saturday.
Moscow charged Friday that the arrest of Lieutenant-Commander Shigehiro Higashi on charges of spying for Russia was an attempt by forces in Japan to stymie its improving ties with Tokyo.
But Russian intelligence officials linked the controversy to Putin's rejection of Japanese sovereignty over the disputed Kuril island chain during last week's summit with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
The islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, were occupied by Soviet troops in the dying days of World War II and the row has prevented the two sides from signing a formal peace treaty.
"The Russian special services traditionally do not comment (on spying rows), but in non-official comments they say the arrest of Hagisaki should be seen as a sort of 'first reaction' by Tokyo to Moscow's firm position on the Northern Territories," the Sevodnya daily reported.
"'Real super agents don't exchange secret documents in a sushi bar,'" the paper quoted one intelligence official as saying.
The meeting was one of hundreds of harmless meetings between Japanese and Russian officials that take place each year, the official told the paper.
"This is not really about espionage. The Japanese, it would seem, simply wanted to show Moscow their irritation over the president's lack of willingness to speed up a resolution of the islands issue," one intelligence officer said.
The Kommersant business daily agreed.
"It is not by chance that police arrested this spy two days after the visit to Japan by Vladimir Putin, who showed unwillingness to settle the territorial dispute by years' end, as the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshuri Mori would have liked," it opined.
The Nezavisimaya daily said the row was a setback for Russian military intelligence, but said Tokyo had cleverly staged the row to avoid retaliation by Moscow.
The paper said the Japanese foreign ministry would wait for the alleged spy, 44-year-old naval attaché Captain Victor Bogatenkov, to leave rather than declare him persona non grata.
"In this way the Japanese hope to reduce to a minimum the risk of an 'adequate response' from Moscow," the paper said. Bogatenkov was reported as having left Tokyo early Saturday.
Nevertheless, the FSB domestic intelligence agency has drawn up lists of Japanese diplomats who could be asked to leave if Putin ordered tit-for-tat expulsions, the paper added.
However, Nezavisimaya said that there were few genuine candidates, as poor language skills mean that Japanese diplomats general do not engage in espionage, instead gathering information from legal sources.
Russian diplomats in Japan, however, were actively employed in seeking sensitive information on Japan's naval plans, its ability to mobilize, its cooperation with the US 7th fleet, details on Japanese admirals and senior naval officers in key posts, naval construction and communications, Nezavisimaya said.
Bogatenkov would have approached Hagisaki to gauge Japan's knowledge of Russia's military preparedness and the state of Russia's nuclear forces in the Far East. The Japanese officer was an expert in Russian affairs – MOSCOW (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
