An elderly woman takes part in the picket staged to protest against the Japanese claims to the four disputable islands of the Far-Eastern Kuril archipelago. The slogan held by the woman reads: 'Hands Off the USSR Territory!' The picket spearheaded by the Stop Nato! movement was staged to mark the anniversary of the Russia-Japan summit in Irkutsk, where Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Yosiro Mori signed a declaration to settle the dispute and Russian President promised to hand over the islands to Japan.
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov
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Official Opinion
// Japan remembers the first agreement with Russia on the Kuriles
Japan observed the 150th anniversary of the signing of the first treaty in the history of Russo-Japanese relations. On February 7, 1955, in the township of Edo, Admiral Evfimy Putiatin and Toshiakira Kawaji, a Japanese government official, put their signatures on the Shimoda Treaty of Commerce, Navigation, and Delimitation, under which the Southern Kuriles, annexed to the Soviet Union after World War II, were recognized as Japanese territory.
This is why every year Japan marks February 7 as Northern Territories Day. An official National Congress for the Return of the Northern Territories was held in Tokyo yesterday. An ailing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi sent his greetings to the congress, in which he said that a strategic partnership between Russia and Japan based on trust relations would become possible after the ownership of the four Southern Kurile Islands had been determined and a peace treaty signed. Masaki Yamazaki, the deputy general secretary of the cabinet, gave the main speech in place of the prime minister. He declared that the government “will persevere in negotiations” to resolve the territorial dispute and sign a peace treaty with Moscow. “Settling the problem of the northern territories is required for the further development of Japan and Russia,” Yamazaki said. “It is important that the Russian side understand that solving the territorial question and building a strategic partnership based on genuine mutual understanding suits the interests of both countries.”
Andrey Ivanov
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 08, 2005
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