The Japanese Communist Party will soon close its newspaper's Moscow bureau, which it established in 1960, JCP public relations officials said.
Some party sources said the decision is part of reorganization of the global bureaus of the paper, Shimbun Akahata (Newspaper Red Flag), as the party has recently put more emphasis on Asia-related news, including diplomacy.
The paper has also seen changes in content since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has had financial difficulties due to a decreasing number of subscribers.
After the Moscow bureau is closed, Akahata will have nine overseas bureaus -- Beijing, Hanoi, New Delhi, Cairo, Paris, London, Berlin, Washington and Mexico City -- with a total of 10 correspondents.
Akahata deployed correspondents in Moscow in 1957 and 1958, and officially established the bureau in 1960.