Japan vows to stop gaffe-prone ex-PM visiting Crimea

TOKYO: Japan vowed today to try to stop a gaffe-prone former prime minister from visiting Crimea to ask its citizens how they feel about being annexed by Russia.
A clearly exasperated Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said the government was trying to prevent Yukio Hatoyama from making the trip, amid fears he might muddy the diplomatic waters and legitimise Moscow's contentious move.
"We understand former prime minister Hatoyama has left for Russia. We will continue our efforts" to stop him, Kishida said.
Hatoyama's plan to travel to the peninsula first surfaced on Friday, as it emerged Japanese officials were urging him to abandon the trip.
But TV Asahi, whose reporters spoke to Hatoyama in Moscow, said he had insisted diplomacy was not the sole preserve of a country's foreign ministry.
"I want to see with my own eyes how people in Crimea are feeling" about the annexation, Hatoyama told them on Monday.
Media say the former premier was expected to fly to Crimea later today and stay there until tomorrow.
Hatoyama, a hugely wealthy man, is no stranger to controversy. His previous attempts at personal diplomacy included a 2012 trip to Iran, made against the wishes of his government.
Tehran cited Hatoyama as saying Iran was the victim of "double standards" by the international nuclear watchdog over what it says is a peaceful atomic power programme.
The US and its allies say Tehran is trying to build a nuclear bomb.
The comments, which Hatoyama later denied, earned him a ticking-off from Tokyo when he returned home. – AFP