Japan's "militarisation" complicates the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council and former President Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday. Russia and Japan have complex relations marked by decades of territorial dispute over a handful of small, Russian-held islands off Hokkaido that Moscow calls the southern Kurils but Japan claims as its Northern Territories. The dispute over the area has prevented Tokyo and Moscow from reaching a peace treaty formally ending hostilities.