Tokyo: Japan will accept two patients from two of the four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido at hospitals on the northernmost Japanese main island as part of its support programme for Russian residents of the disputed islands, the Japanese Foreign Ministry has said.
The hospitals will accept the two female patients in their teens from Kunashiri and Etorofu islands, one of whom is suffering from a bone disease and the other from a hearing impairment, from July 30 through August 17, the ministry said yesterday.
Japan has accepted patients from the islands since fiscal 1998.
The islands were seized by the Soviet Union following Japan`s surrender in World War II on August 15, 1945.
Collectively, they are known as the Northern Territories in Japan and as the Southern Kurils in Russia. (Kyodo)
PTI
