TOKYO, October 4. /TASS/. The Japanese government plans to bring talks with Russia to a new level with the goal of solving the territorial issue and signing a peace treaty, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the parliament on Friday.
"Now joint economic activity has been launched on the four northern islands [the Southern Kuril Islands]. For the third year in a row, our citizens have enjoyed an opportunity to visit their ancestors’ graves, going there by plane. Bilateral agreements are consistently being implemented," Abe said delivering his speech at the parliament’s opening session.
"After solving the territorial issue, we will sign a peace treaty," he stressed. "Based on the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, we will advance the talks to a new level and open up huge possibilities in Japanese-Russian ties," Abe pointed out.
Moscow and Tokyo have been in talks to sign a peace treaty since the mid-20th century. The main stumbling block to achieving this goal is the issue of ownership of the Southern Kuril Islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan. After the end of World War II, the Kuril Islands were incorporated into the Soviet Union. However, the ownership of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan Islands and the Habomai Islands has been challenged by Japan.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stressed that Russia’s sovereignty over these islands, which is committed to paper in international documents, cannot be called in question.
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 boost peace negotiations based on the 1956 Joint Declaration. The document said the state of war between the two countries ended and diplomatic and consular ties were restored. In the declaration, the Soviet expressed readiness 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. The declaration was ratified by the two countries’ parliaments on December 8, 1956.
This May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov highlighted that the document clearly implied that a border disengagement issue could be only considered after the peace treaty was signed.