Russian Foreign Ministry on possible liquidation of Commission for Aid to Kurils

Moscow hopes that if Japan takes specific measures related to the liquidation of the Commission for Providing Humanitarian Aid to the Population of the Kurils, it will hold consultations with other signatories of the agreement which instituted this body and regulated its activities, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko at a press-conference on Monday. According to him, "the main points of the current discussion about the commission's activity are mostly related to internal circumstances of the Japanese side". It has been reported from Tokyo that Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi was submitted a report prepared by a group of experts proposing to liquidate the commission and to cease the implementation of a number of programmes aimed at supporting the Russian reform. Yakovenko pointed out that the report's recommendations suggest several variants of settling the situation around the Commission, and not only its liquidation. "The Japanese side has not taken any final decisions," he noted.