Bargaining on the Kuril Islands is inappropriate

    It is time for Tokyo to stop setting unacceptable conditions and accept the post-war realities as the losing side
    access_time09 Sep 2021
    print 9 9 2021
     

    The Japanese government has made a presentation to the Russian side about the special tax regime that Russia plans to introduce on the Kuril Islands. This is reported by TASS with reference to the General Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers Katsunobu Katō.

    "This contradicts the position of our country on the four northern islands, as well as the essence of the discussions of joint Japanese-Russian economic activities that have been conducted so far on the basis of agreements at the highest level," the Prime Minister of the Rising Sun country said. According to him, the submission says that joint economic activities should be carried out without infringing on the positions of the Japanese side.

    It is worth noting that the Japanese side once again forgets certain historical facts. In accordance with the generally recognised results of the Second World War and the signed surrender, the belonging of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of adjacent small uninhabited islands is indisputable. This has been repeatedly emphasised not only by the Russian side.

    Under the terms of the San Francisco Conference of 1951 and the peace treaty, Japan recognised the loss of its sovereignty over Taiwan and the Pescadores, the Paracel and Spratly Islands, over Korea, renounced "all rights, legal grounds and claims to the Kuril Islands and to that part of Sakhalin Island and adjacent islands, over which Japan acquired sovereignty under the Portsmouth Treaty of September 5, 1905”.

    It is worth noting that Moscow has repeatedly offered to sign a peace treaty between Japan and the USSR.

    On October 19, 1956, the USSR and Japan even adopted the Moscow Declaration, which allowed ending the state of war and restoring diplomatic relations between the two countries. At the same time, after the signing of the peace treaty, the USSR agreed to the transfer of two islands to Japan: Habomai and Shikotan. However, under pressure from the United States, the Japanese side refused to sign the peace treaty.

    Washington, in the event of Japan's withdrawal of claims to the islands of Kunashir and Iturup, refused to return to Japan the Ryukyu archipelago with the island of Okinawa, where US troops were located according to the signed Japanese-American "Security Pact". The same document granted the United States the right to deploy ground, air and sea forces in or near Japan, and allowed it to exert military and political pressure on Japan.

    In 1993, the Tokyo Declaration on Russian-Japanese Relations, which states that Russia is the legal successor of the USSR and all agreements signed between the USSR and Japan will be recognised by both Russia and Japan, was signed.

    In 2004, Russia declared that, as a successor state of the USSR, it recognises the 1956 Declaration and is ready to conduct territorial negotiations with Japan on its basis in such volumes as these agreements were. The Japanese side refused to raise the issue in this way. Despite this, Moscow has repeatedly offered Japan to meet each other halfway. However, the official Tokyo puts forward conditions that are unacceptable for Russia.

    The current statement of the Japanese side is nothing more than an unwillingness to consider the problem through diplomatic consultations and mutually beneficial cooperation. Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that the Russian flag will never be lowered over any part of the Kuril Islands — Moscow will never give them to anyone, it will invest in the development of the region itself if the Japanese ignore the benefits of economic activity on the Russian Kuril Islands for political reasons.

    Russia has always supported joint economic activities in the southern part of the Kuril Islands. However, the parameters of this work, including the "tax regime" on the sovereign Russian territory, will be established in accordance with the decisions of the government of the Russian Federation.

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