Japan and Russia in tough talks over islands
The fate of four contested islands in the fertile fishing waters of the Sea of Okhotsk was expected to dominate talks today between Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Machimura arrived in Moscow on yesterday, intent on pushing for the return of the Russian-held islands, which Moscow calls the Southern Kurils and Tokyo calls the Northern Territories.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said yesterday that due to “fundamental” differences over the islands, it would likely take a long time to negotiate a peace treaty formally ending the nations’ Second World War hostilities, the Interfax news agency reported.
The meeting between Machimura and Lavrov was to pave the way for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Japan, tentatively set for early this year.
The two nations, however, recently have escalated their war of words over the islands, which lie between Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido and the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East.
Last month, Putin reaffirmed Russia’s adherence to a 1956 declaration in which the Soviet Union said it was ready to return two of the islands, which it seized in the closing days of the Second World War. But he also emphasised that the declaration made the transfer conditional on a peace treaty confirming both nations’ renounced territorial claims, and he sharply criticised Japan’s calls for the return of all four islands.
Machimura insisted before departing for Moscow that the return of all four islands was a precondition for signing a peace treaty.
The two countries have had diplomatic ties since 1956 but their dispute over the islands has prevented the signing of the treaty, which is considered necessary to forge closer economic ties.
Alexeyev said yesterday that the Japanese push for all the islands remained a stumbling point in negotiations.
“I see a fundamental disagreement in this, which proves the complexity of the issue that will require a lengthy and detailed discussion,” Alexeyev said, according to Interfax. Amid the territorial row, the work on a peace treaty “may take a long time,” he added.
