July 10, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 24, 1428

MOSCOW: Russia said on Monday it would release a Japanese fishing boat detained on suspicion of poaching but voiced regret that Tokyo had turned to an international maritime court to resolve the case.

The foreign ministry said in a statement it had informed Japan that the fishing boat detained last month in eastern Russia, the Hoshin Maru No. 88, would be released upon payment of a financial deposit, still to be determined.

The statement stressed that the boat and its crew, said by Japan to number 17 men, had been detained in Russia’s “exclusive economic zone” near the Kamchatka peninsula.

It voiced disappointment that Japan had chosen to file a complaint at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany, the first time Japan has done so.

“Given Russian's openness to resolving the problem on a bilateral basis, it is regrettable that Japan preferred the course of a court case,” the statement said.—AFP