TOKYO, January 17. /TASS/. Japan plans to develop the entire set of relations with Russia, including energy cooperation, as well as resume consistent negotiations on a peace treaty, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated at the plenary session of the lower house on Monday.
"We will develop Japanese-Russian relations in all areas, including cooperation in the field of energy, to promote our national interests," the Japanese prime minister noted. Kishida also mentioned that Tokyo was going to continue consistent talks aimed at settling the territorial issue and signing a peace treaty based on existing bilateral agreements, in particular, those reached in Singapore in 2018.
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.
In November 2018, during a meeting in Singapore, Russian President Vladimir Putin and then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to boost negotiations on a peace treaty based on the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, which ended war and restored diplomatic ties between the two countries. According to the document, the USSR expressed its readiness to hand over the island of Shikotan and some uninhabited islands of the Lesser Kuril Chain to Japan after signing a peace treaty.
The declaration was ratified by the parliaments of both states on December 8, 1956. As Moscow has repeatedly emphasized, this document clearly indicated that the territorial issue could be considered only after concluding a peace treaty.