MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/. Three-quarters (77%) of Russians say they are opposed to any transfer of the southern Kuril Islands over to Japan for the sake of reaching a peace deal and boosting bilateral relations, the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center said in a statement on Monday.

Three-fourths (77%) of those surveyed oppose handing the southern Kuril Islands over to Japan," the statement reads. "As many as 29% argue that the issue has been solved already and the islands belong to Russia, while one in ten said that we had fought to get those islands," the pollster added.

Most of the poll’s participants (79%) know about Japan’s claim to the islands. Only 14% believe that Moscow should hand the disputed islands over to Tokyo. Seven percent emphasize the importance of bilateral relations and a peace treaty, two percent say that the islands will undergo development as part of Japan and local residents would benefit from it. One percent noted that initially, the islands belonged to Japan, which has a rather small territory in the first place, they also highlighted the need to boost economic cooperation and share technology, and suggested selling the islands, adding that Russia made no profit from those islands.

More and more Russians believe that talks should last as long as it takes until the parties arrive at a mutually beneficial solution (the number rose from 34% in 2009 to 51% in 2018). A total of 13% of those polled call for completing negotiations as soon as possible and turning the page even if it hurts Russia’s interests. Another 13% suggest putting an end to the talks with Japan and 15% think that the issue should be put off for 15-20 years so that the coming generations will have to deal with it.

"People do not understand for what reason these islands should be given away, they consider them to be part of Russia and fear that such a move will set off a chain reaction, leading to a revision in the outcome of World War II," head of the All-Russian Opinion Research Center Valery Fyodorov explained. "This is why our public’s main demand for the Russian-Japanese talks is to achieve a result that will be effective from our standpoint, regardless of how long it takes," he added.

The nationwide poll involving 1,600 respondents was conducted on November 26, 2018. The margin of error does not exceed 2.5% at a 95% confidence level.

 

Dispute over Kurils

 

Since the mid-20th century, Russia and Japan have been holding consultations in order to clinch a peace treaty as a follow-up to World War II. The Kuril Islands issue remains the key sticking point since after WWII the islands were handed over to the Soviet Union while Japan laid claims to the four southern islands.

In November 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Singapore and agreed that the two countries would accelerate the pace of the peace negotiations based on the 1956 Joint Declaration. The document ended the state of war and said that the Soviet government was ready to hand Shikotan Island and a group of small islands called Habomai over to Japan on condition that Tokyo would take control of them once a peace treaty was signed.

However, after Japan and the United States had signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security in 1960, the Soviet Union withdrew its obligation to hand over the islands. A Soviet government’s memorandum dated January 27, 1960, said that those islands would only be handed over to Japan if all foreign troops were pulled out of the country.

Russia has pointed out on numerous occasions that the document does not clarify handover conditions and thus required further clarification.