Representative of the ancient Ainu nation living in Japan laid claim to the South Kurile Islands on Monday and demanded that Moscow and Tokyo stop the talks on whom the Islands belong to. They forwarded their protest statement to the Japanese foreign ministry and to the Russian embassy in Japan.

The statement says that "the four Kurile Islands belong neither to Japan nor to Russia," and that they have been inhabited by the Ainu people since time immemorial. They suggested that the Ainu people should be allowed to freely visit the South Kurile Islands, with a view to turning them into an autonomous area of the Ainu nation in the future.

Scientists believe that several thousand years ago the Ainu ethnic group inhabited the whole of Japan, the lower reaches of the Amur River, the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Sakhalin and Kurile Islands. In the 17th century, however, the Ainus were driven away from about all their territories, with the exception of the northernmost regions of Japan. After the Kurile Islands became part of the Soviet Union as a result of the Second World War, about all the Ainus voluntarily moved to Hokkaido, although they were not to be deported, unlike the Japanese. At present the numerical strength of those "Japanese Injuns" is a little over 20,000.

Source: Agencies