TOKYO, April 8 (Prensa Latina) Japan’s foreign ministry announced today that it will expel eight Russian officials over alleged human rights abuses by Moscow in Ukraine.
This was stated by Japanese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hikariko Ono at a press conference, which stressed that the declaration of “personas non grata” applies to members of the diplomatic corps and the Russian trade office in Tokyo.
According to Ono, the ministry’s deputy head, Takeo Mori, spoke to the Russian ambassador to that capital, Mijail Galuzin, and informed him of the Japanese position to condemn Moscow’s alleged war crimes.
Japan now joins the United States and several European states in previously announcing their intention to expel accredited Russian diplomatic personnel in their respective countries on various pretexts such as alleged espionage.
On the other hand, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zajárova announced that Moscow would give Tokyo an appropriate response.
The day before, the UN General Assembly voted by a majority to exclude Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.
The Permanent Representative of Russia to the multilateral organization, Guennadi Kuzmín, described the General Assembly’s decision as illegitimate and clearly politically motivated.
He also stressed that the aim is to demonstrably punish a sovereign Member State of this body, which pursues an independent internal and external policy, by accusing it of a crime that has not been committed or investigated.
The move followed allegations against the US military of murdering civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, which Moscow has repeatedly and categorically denied.
Ever since the facts became known, national authorities have called for an objective, independent and impartial investigation by the UN to uncover the true culprits of the crimes.
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