VLADIVOSTOK, April 23 (RAPSI) - The Sakhalin customs office has confiscated several glossy booklets from a Japanese tourist which contain maps marking the Kuril Islands as Japanese territory, the Far Eastern Customs Department reported on Tuesday.

An expert evaluation has shown that the booklets are propaganda material and inaccurately represent the state border between Russia and Japan.

It is illegal to bring goods of this kind through the Customs Union borders. The customs authorities have therefore opened two administrative cases, involving the failure to observe an import ban and the failure to declare these products.

The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands stretching from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan's Hokkaido Island. Russia took control of the islands after World War II, pursuant to the Cairo Declaration of Nov. 27, 1943, the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945, and the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty.

The disputed islands of Iturup, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai, called the Southern Kurils in Russia, are still claimed by Japan. In January, former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori suggested Japan should seek the return of just three of the islands, leaving Iturup to Russia, to settle the dispute. But Japan’s Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said all four islands belong to Japan and the government is not planning to overturn its position.

Russia has maintained it will not give up the islands' sovereignty. In 2010, then President Dmitry Medvedev sparked a diplomatic row with Tokyo by making the first ever visit by a Russian leader to the islands, and later said Russia would increase its military presence there.