A spokesman from Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the comments from the Japanese side concerning President Dmitry Medvedev’s planned trips to the disputed Kuril Islands “inappropriate and unacceptable.”

“The Russian president independently selects routes of his domestic trips. Any recommendations from abroad are inappropriate and unacceptable,” said Andrei Nesterenko at a Thursday news briefing.

Medvedev said earlier on Wednesday that the Kuril Islands are “very important region” for Russia and he will visit there soon.

In response, a number of Japanese politicians have urged the Russian head of state to avoid such trips, which they said would complicated relations between Moscow and Tokyo as them also claimed sovereignty over the controversial islands.

“We consider it necessary to recall that these islands are a territory of the Russian Federation in accordance with international legal reality that emerged following the Second World War and enshrined in the U.N. Charter,” said Nesterenko.

The spokesman meanwhile said both sides should take active steps to expand cooperation in key areas to strengthen constructive cooperation in international affairs, and the dialogue concerning the conclusion of a peace treaty and the subsequent border demarcation should quietly continue.

At the invitation of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, said Nesterenko, the Russian ambassador to Japan will present this Russian position to the Japanese side.

The four disputed Pacific islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia, were occupied by Soviet troops in 1945 and are currently under Russian control.

Russia and Japan have long been at odds due to the territorial dispute over these islands, which has blocked a peace treaty between the two countries since the end of World War