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Russia said Wednesday it regretted the death of a Japanese fisherman in a clash with a Russian patrol boat but blamed the Japanese side for the incident.

The crab fisherman was shot and killed near Kaigara Island, one of several islands off the northeast tip of Hokkaido that are claimed by both Russia and Japan.

Russian officials said the man, who remains unidentified, was killed as he rushed to recover fishing tools aboard the 4.9-ton crab fishing boat, No 31 Kyoshin Maru.

The shooting, linked to a 60-year-old territorial dispute, prompted a series of angry statements between the two nations.

"The Russian Foreign Ministry expresses its deep regret in connection with the death of one of the crew members," the ministry said in a statement posted on its website www.mid.ru.

"It is clear that responsibility for this incident rests fully and completely with those who were directly guilty, and also with those representatives of the Japanese authorities who connive in poaching by Japanese fishermen in Russian territorial waters," it said.

The statement said the Japanese trawler was inside Russian waters and that a Russian border patrol boat had caught it fishing illegally.

"One of the crew members was fatally wounded, presumably by a stray bullet when warning shots were being fired and during dangerous maneuvers by the guilty vessel," it said.
 
The statement added that Russian authorities had complained repeatedly to Japan about fishing vessels operating illegally in Russian waters. "Unfortunately, these warnings were not heeded," the foreign ministry said.

The trawler was near a group of islands that are the subject of a 50-year-old territorial dispute between Moscow and Tokyo.

Japan's Foreign Ministry said it had demanded the immediate release of the crabbing craft and its three other crew members.

About a dozen right-wing protesters dressed in pseudo-military uniforms turned up in trucks with loudspeakers at Tokyo's Russian Embassy, calling the shooting a murder.

A spokesman said Foreign Minister Taro Aso would call Russia's acting ambassador to the ministry late Wednesday to reiterate Tokyo's protest.

Earlier, a government source said the Russian action appeared to have been a case of excessive use of force.

Russia's Interfax news agency said the border guards had fired a warning shot into the air, and later found a Japanese man dead on the boat with a bullet wound to the head.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi raised hackles in Moscow in 2004 when he inspected the islands from a Japanese Coast Guard vessel, and a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Koizumi late last year achieved no major breakthroughs in the dispute.
 
(China Daily August 17, 2006)