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Vladimir Putin Being Invited to View the Cherry Blossoms
// How Japan Is Trying to Get the Russian President to Visit
People's Friendship
Tokyo is analyzing the results of Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura's visit to Moscow, which ended on Saturday. As expected, no progress was made in settling the question of ownership of four islands in the Southern Kurile chain. Nevertheless, Japan has promised Russia to cooperate in the construction of the first oil export pipeline in the Far East. The Japanese side is doing everything possible to prevent Vladimir Putin from canceling his planned visit to Tokyo this year. Vasily Golovin, an ITAR-TASS correspondent in Japan, gives the details especially for Kommersant.
The Japanese Are Asking for Sovereignty
In its customary style, the respected Japanese newspaper Yomiuri considers latest round of debates on the Southern Kuriles “spasms of positions of principle”. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov outlined for the guest Moscow's approach formulated at the end of last year: we recognize the joint declaration of 1956, in which the USSR agreed to hand over to its neighbor the smallest part of the Southern Kuriles (the island of Shikotan and the uninhabited Habomai chain). But only in the form of a final concession and only after the signing of a peace treaty.
In response, Mr. Machimura once more declared that Japan had sovereignty over all the disputed islands (Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and Habomai). However, he explained that Tokyo was primarily looking only for Russia's recognition of this fact. The Japanese side was willing to take a flexible approach to the form, dates, and conditions for the physical transfer of the islands. In addition, Deputy Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi explained at the beginning of January that in this case, the present Russian inhabitants of the Southern Kuriles may be granted dual citizenship with all the considerable opportunities enjoyed by natives of the Land of the Rising Sun extended to them.
At a press conference following the talks, the Japanese minister disputed Moscow's assertions that Tokyo had agreed only on Shikotan and Habomai back in 1956 once it signed the joint declaration and ratified it. “If we had been able to settle the territorial question by the transfer of only these islands, we would not have signed a joint statement in 1956, but a peace treaty,” the minister explained. Unfortunately, he's right: Tokyo has not deviated from its demands for the return of all the Southern Kuriles. The Japanese have always believed that the clause on Shikotan and Habomai in the joint declaration only fixes Moscow's unilateral offer. In 1993, Boris Yeltsin officially recognized all the Southern Kuriles as a point of contention, and Tokyo tends to attach particular significance to this agreement.
The Prime Minister Doesn't Want to Quarrel
At the concluding press conference in Moscow, Sergey Lavrov verified that the positions of the parties in the dispute over the islands were “opposing”. However, both he and Mr. Machimura made every effort to avoid creating the impression of a deadlock, or worse, a crisis in relations. There were words about the necessity of “building bridges”, and the Japanese minister calmly explained that a resolution of the territorial question would require “ several top-level meetings”. It was decided to clarify the matter of the dates and content of President Vladimir Putin's official visit to Tokyo before the end of January. In preparation for the visit, a meeting of a public council headed by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiro Mori will be held on February 2. A meeting of an intergovernmental trade and economic commission will also be held next month: Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko will travel to Tokyo to take part in it. Sergey Lavrov will visit Japan in the first half of March to put the finishing touches on the preparations for Putin's trip. Tokyo calculates that after this, the Russian president's visit could take place some time in April – just at the height of the cherry blossom season.
The Japanese business newspaper Nihon Keizai believes that ensuring Vladimir Putin's visit to Tokyo has now become almost an end in itself for bilateral relations. The president has personally promised Japan's Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, that he will come to Japan “in the early part of 2005”, but something is delaying the announcement of a specific date. Many people in Tokyo see this as a subtle attempt to play on the partner's nerves: maybe he'll take a step forward in the dispute over the islands. There is no counting on Japanese concessions, but the Japanese prime minister cannot afford a delay or cancellation of the Russian president's visit.
In the first place, this would be interpreted as yet another of Junichiro Koizumi's personal diplomatic blunders. He has also been blamed for the deterioration of relations with Beijing, which dislikes the prime minister's regular pilgrimages to the Tokyo temple where the principal Japanese war criminals hanged in 1948 are included on lists of war heroes. China regards this as an insult to the memory of the victims of the Japanese aggressors and has frozen high-level contacts with Tokyo. A similar breakdown in the dialog with Russia would mean that the prime minister has broken with his country's most important neighbors.
The Chinese and the Russian Card
As the newspaper Sankei Shimbun writes, the “Chinese shadow” is hovering more and more over relations between Tokyo and Moscow. The unchecked strengthening of China's military and economic potential is forcing Tokyo to think about the “Russian card” as a means of curbing Beijing's ambitions. There are also fears for the geopolitical order. In an interview, Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka expressed his alarm at how the Russian Far East was losing population and feeling pressure from China in this area”. He called this “an adverse situation for Japan” and alluded to the need to help Moscow solve the problem of its eastern provinces. However, the diplomat added the proviso that, “we cannot rush headlong into developing ties with Russia while settling aside the territorial issue”.
There is still another factor: for the first time, Tokyo has begun thinking of Russia as a serious economic partner. The volume of trade between the two countries was about $8 billion dollars last year, a jump of more than 40% at once. Of course this figure pales in comparison with the scales of Japanese trade turnover with the United States and China. However, it will increase sharply when the Sakhalin oil and gas project gets fully underway. Of even more significance for Tokyo is the Taishet–Nakhodka oil export pipeline, the first such pipeline in Russia's Far East, designed primarily for Japan's needs.
As reported, during Minister Machimura's visit to Moscow, he promised to render assistance in geological work related to laying this pipeline, construction of which will cost a minimum of $10 billion. Japan is very pleased that the oil pipeline will not go to China as previously planned and in general form is expressing its willingness to assist the project with preferential credits. However, according to sources in Tokyo, Moscow has still not provided information on the pipeline's profitability, which is forcing private business in Japan to take a cautious approach to its construction. For example, it is unclear whether oil production in the Far East can be brought to 1.6 million barrels a day, without which pumping, as they say, becomes meaningless. The Japanese are also waiting for convincing evidence that transporting oil through Russia's thinly populated expanses will at least be no more expensive than conveying it by tanker from the Middle East.
Vasily Golovin
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 17, 2005
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