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Russia to stand by pledge to Japan over disputed Kuril
islands
AFP
March 19, 2002
Russia pledged to stand by a Soviet-era agreement with Tokyo over four disputed islands off northern Japan despite a resolution by deputies urging President Vladimir Putin to reaffirm Russian sovereignty over them.
Foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said that as the successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia would "fulfil all the international legal obligations" assumed by Moscow in 1956 when it signed with Tokyo a statement ending World War II hostilities.
The statement included a clause in which Moscow pledged to hand over two of four southern Kuril islands seized by Soviet troops at the end of the war, Shikotan and Habomai, once a formal peace treaty was concluded.
The fate of the other two islands, Kunashiri and Etorofu, was to be determined later.
With Japan refusing to formalise a peace treaty until the dispute over the Kurils is settled, no progress towards achieving such an agreement has been made since then.
The Kurils issue has continued to bedevil Russo-Japanese relations, acting as a brake on badly needed Japanese investment in the Russian economy, notably in the Far Eastern region.
There has been growing speculation in Russia that the government is engaged in behind-the-scenes negotiations to return two of the islands while continuing talks about the other two in line with a proposal by Tokyo last month that the sides should adopt a "two-plus-two" approach.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov sought to dampen the rumours last week, denying that Moscow was negotiating a handover in exchange for having its foreign debts cleared, but Tokyo was adamant that Russia had not turned down its two-track proposal.
With new opinion polls showing Russian public broadly opposed to handing the islands back, the State Duma lower house approved a proposal Monday recommending Putin to abandon efforts to secure a peace treaty with Japan so as to sidestep Tokyo's demands.
The deputies urged Putin to seek instead a "cooperation and good neighbours treaty, bearing in mind that Russia and Japan made peace in 1956 and there is no need for an additional peace treaty," the Interfax news agency reported.
"Territorial concessions by Russia are unacceptable and the treaty should only confirm the existing border between Russia and Japan which has gained international recognition," according to the text drafted by the chairmen of the Duma foreign affairs and security committees Dmitry Rogozin and Alexander Gurov.
Rogozin told deputies the islands were important "in protecting Russia's security interests" and said the 1956 pledge had been an "obvious mistake."
Gurov said the Russian authorities should be tougher in "strengthening Russia's sovereignty over the south Kuril islands."
Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Muhamed Tsikanov told deputies that a bill setting up a Kuril islands free economic zone was to be approved later this year.
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