Kremlin refutes reports of Russian military presence in Venezuela

VLADIVOSTOK (Sputnik): Media reports claiming that Russian military contractors have arrived in Venezuela to reinforce the security of President Nicolas Maduro are untrue, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.

“Fear sees danger everywhere. Of course not,” Peskov told the Rossiya 1 broadcaster when asked whether it was true that Russian military were protecting Maduro in Venezuela.

The Reuters news agency reported on Friday citing sources that Russian private military contractors flew into Venezuela to help guard Maduro amid ongoing protests in the country. Russian Ambassador in Caracas Vladimir Zaemsky told Sputnik that the report was “another hoax.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that conclusion of a peace treaty over the disputed Kuril islands between Moscow and Tokyo is impeded by Japan’s sanctions against Russia.

“They [Japan] support the sanctions regime, and this is one of the issues, one of the situations, which seriously hamper the signing of the peace treaty,” Peskov told the Rossiya 1 broadcaster.

Japan joined the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States against Moscow in 2014 after Crimea’s reunification with Russia and amid the crisis in eastern Ukraine.

In October 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted at the Valdai Discussion Club forum in Sochi that confidence between the two countries needed for signing the peace treaty was undermined by some factors including Tokyo’s sanctions against Russia.

At the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in September, Putin proposed Japan to sign the peace treaty without any preconditions by the end of 2018, but it had found no understanding on the part of Tokyo, Peskov noted.

The Russian-Japanese relations have long been complicated by the fact that the two nations never signed a permanent peace treaty after the end of World War II. The deal was never reached because of a disagreement over a group of four islands — Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai — that are claimed by both countries. They are collectively referred to as the Southern Kurils by Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan.