TOKYO, December 14. / TASS /. The dispute over the Northern Territories (as Japan refers to the southern part of the Kurils) is the most challenging problem in Japanese-Russian bilateral relations, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Tuesday during a regular press conference in Tokyo.

"The dispute over the Northern Territories has not yet been resolved <...>. Since this is the biggest challenge in Japanese-Russian relations, I believe that it is necessary to thoroughly discuss this issue," the top diplomat noted. Regarding the 30th anniversary marking the intergovernmental agreement on establishing visa-free travel between Japanese prefectures and the southern part of the Kuril Islands, Hayashi said that such trips "increase mutual understanding between Japanese citizens and residents of the four northern islands."

The Japanese top diplomat also mentioned that amid the COVID-19 pandemic, visa-free travel has been canceled since 2020, expressing hope that the program would resume as soon as possible.

The sides agree on the visa-free exchange program on an annual basis, with participants of this initiative usually traveling from May to October. Visa-free travel was introduced in 1992 as part of an intergovernmental agreement to improve mutual understanding between the peoples of the two countries. Since the onset of this program, over 8,000 residents of the Iturup, Kunashir and Shikotan Islands have visited Japan and more than 18,000 Japanese have traveled to the southern part of the Kurils.

For decades, Moscow and Tokyo have been holding consultations in order to hammer out a peace treaty in the aftermath of World War II. The southern Kuril Islands issue remains the key sticking point. In 1945, the whole archipelago was handed over to the Soviet Union. Tokyo laid claims to Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of uninhabited islands. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stated that Moscow’s sovereignty over the islands is enshrined in international law and cannot be called into question.