Temporary Agreement Drawing to Close: Moscow Silent Tokyo, Nov. 15.
Fishery problems to-day again threatened to bring friction between Japan and Soviet Russia.
According to an official report to the Foreign Office this afternoon by Mr. Haruhiko Nishi, Counsellor of the Japanese Embassy in Moscow, he was given a.non-committal answer by M. Benedict I. Kozlovsky, direc-for of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissariat, when he broached the subject of a new Soviet-Japanese fisheries convention on Saturday.
Last year the two governments failed to agree on terms of a new Convention but made a temporary agreement which expires in December, M, Kozlovsky told Mr. Nishi he would be unable to engage in any discussions as he had no instructions.
Pointing out that settlement of the question was essential to the maintenance of peaceful relations between Japan and the Soviet Union, the Japanese official said he urged reconsideration by M. Kozlovsky who, the report said, remained adamant.
Unless an agreement is reached, officials here said to-day, Japan may resort to "unrestricted fishing" in Russian territorial waters to which they claim a right under the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty of 1905.—Domei,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.