TOKYO, February 7. /TASS/. Tokyo remains committed to a policy aimed at concluding a peace treaty with Moscow, nearly eight decades after the end of hostilities in 1945, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said.

"It is indeed regrettable that today, 78 years after the war ended, the issue of the Northern Territories (the name given to the southern part of Russia’s Kuril islands in Japan - TASS) remains unresolved and there is no peace treaty between Japan and Russia. However, the government remains firmly committed to resolving the territorial issue and concluding a peace treaty," he said at the annual National Rally to Demand the Return of the Northern Territories.

Kishida claimed that relations between Japan and Russia had soured because of Moscow’s special operation in Ukraine.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, in turn, pointed out that Tokyo would continue to work with the international community, primarily the Group of Seven (G7), to impose more sanctions on Russia over the situation in Ukraine.

From the mid-20th century until their recent suspension, Moscow and Tokyo had been holding talks in an attempt to hammer out a peace treaty as a follow-up to fighting between the two countries at the tail end of World War II in August-September 1945. The issue of the southern Kuril Islands has perennially remained the key sticking point in such talks, however. In 1945, jurisdiction over the entire archipelago was awarded to the Soviet Union. Tokyo, however, laid claim to the islands of Iturup, Kunashir and 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.

Japan introduced several packages of sanctions on Russia after Moscow launched its special military operation in Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced in this regard that Moscow was suspending peace treaty talks with Tokyo.