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Japan Divides Kurils in Half
// Tokyo might exchange two islands for a peace treaty with Russia
Yesterday’s quick visit of Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov to Tokyo had a rather unexpected outcome. Japan said it is ready to increase investment in Siberia, tried to soften Moscow’s irritation over the creation of a regional missile defense system in the Far East, and did not press the issue of the South Kuril islands. Besides, there have appeared persistent rumors that Japan began exploratory talks concerning a compromise over the islands in the ‘post-Putin’ period. ITAR-TASS correspondent Vasily Golovnin brings the details from Tokyo, specially for Kommersant.
Patriots near Temple
Russia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov began his visit to Tokyo by visiting the only Russian Orthodox cathedral in the Japanese capital, -- the Christ’s Resurrection Cathedral. It is also known as Nikolai-do, or the Nicolas Temple, among the local Christian and non-Christian residents. The second name is in honor of Nikolai Kasatkin, a preacher who worked here a century ago. In the cathedral, Lavrov talked to Metropolitan Daniil, head of the Japanese autonomous church, and did not notice, apparently, a quite weak rally of ultra-rightists who demanded, as usual, that “the northern territories should be returned”.
The protesters were diligently cruising in two buses along the police cordon around the temple, shouting through loudspeakers about Russian occupants, and threatening to “rub Lavrov’s limo into asphalt”. The noise made a Japanese Russian Orthodox priest come out of the cathedral. He looked at the troublemakers, holding his hand above his eyes as protection from sunshine, and said good-naturedly to the reporters in the yard that “fools are fools - they observe no rules”. The protesting Japanese patriots left soon, without trying to implement their threats to the Russian minister’s car in revenge for the still-unreturned South Kurils.
The Japanese officials were quite reserved on the islands issue. Japan’s Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura just repeated the traditional call for finding a “mutually acceptable solution” to the issue at the talks, and refused to answer any questions related to the South Kurils at a press conference afterwards. In his turn, Lavrov said the solution should be acceptable for the public and the parliaments of both countries. “It implies joint mutually-respectful work between Russia and Japan. We are ready for that work,” assured Lavrov, well aware that so far there is going to be no real discussion concerning the South Kurils.
“Russian Deng Xiaoping”
However, Japan drew attention to the Russian authorities’ statements, made several times recently, about their readiness to discuss the islands issue after the 2008 presidential election as well. Experts in Tokyo immediately linked it to the rumors that President Putin will retain the control levers even after leaving his position as head of state. “He’ll become a ‘Russian Deng Xiaoping’ and will definitely solve the territorial issue,” assured a well-known Japanese expert on Russia.
If trusting quite reliable sources, Tokyo has now unofficially offered to Moscow an extremely audacious (by local standards) variant of solving the South Kurils dispute. The offer is to go back to the Joint Declaration of 1956, where Nikita Khrushchev promised to pass over the minor part of the South Kurils to Japan as a sign of goodwill after signing the peace treaty. That minor part includes Shikotan Island and the adjacent uninhabited ridge which the Japanese call Habomai. Several years ago, President Putin officially proposed to hold talks on the basis of that document. However, Tokyo did not respond to his offer, because Japan then insisted on all islands at once.
Now, however, the sources say that Japan offers signing the peace treaty, and wants to receive Shikotan and Habomai. Tokyo also wants to fixate in the document’s text the disputable status of the two other islands, Kunashir and Iturup, most populated and economically developed, which will remain with Russia so far. Tokyo wants Moscow to agree to carry on the talks on their status after the peace treaty is signed. The sources said there are just exploratory talks now. It does not mean the official offer is to follow soon.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, who came to Tokyo together with Lavrov, firmly said that he does not know anything about Japan’s initiative. Anyway, it is clear the real discussion of the islands compromise cannot happen now. It is due not only to the pre-election period in Russia, but also to the fact that nothing presses Moscow now to make territorial concessions.
Russia Wants to Join Missile Defense
Even without solving the South Kurils issue, Moscow-Tokyo economic relations develop quite rapidly. The bilateral trade turnover might exceed $20 billion this year. Although Russia’s share in Japanese export still makes up around 1 percent, it is an absolute record anyway. Japanese investment is growing. Besides building Toyota, Nissan, and Suzuki factories in Russia, Japan is also interested in capital investment in Siberia and the Russian Far East. Creating a bilateral commission on issues of investment into the region’s strategic sectors, such as transport, communications, energy resources refining, is on the agenda now.
Lavrov’s visit showed that the two countries have just one issue of difference, apart from the South Kurils. It is Tokyo’s plans to create, together with Washington, a regional missile defense system in the Far East. Ahead of his visit, Lavrov said that Russia is concerned about these plans. In Tokyo, Alexander Losyukov explained Moscow’s position. The official made it clear that Russia is not against the US-Japanese missile defense system in the Far East, but would like to participate in it. “We stand for an open system. We could contribute to it as well, and we would not then think it is aimed against us,” Losyukov said. In other words, Russia is trying to join the US-and-allies missile defense project in the Far East just like in Europe, trying to deprive the project of its potential anti-Russia direction.
However, these plans in Asia are even farther from reality than in Europe. After the negotiations with Lavrov, his Japanese counterpart Masahiro Komura simply assured that the Tokyo-Washington missile defense system is not aimed against Russia, by no means.
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How the tactics in the Russia-Japan dispute changed over years
In 1951, according to the San Francisco peace treaty, Japan acknowledged the WWII outcome, including its own loss of South Sakhalin and the Kuril islands. However, the U.S. said soon afterwards that Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and Habomai are not part of the Kurils. Ever since, Japan’s position in the territorial dispute remains unchanged: all the four islands belong to Japan and should be given back. The only thing that changes is the tactics for reaching that purpose.
In 1956, Japan demanded for the first time to return all northern territories. The demand left unsatisfied, Japan agreed to meet halfway and signed a joint declaration with the USSR. It stipulated signing a peace treaty and returning the islands of Shikotan and Habomai to Japan. Tokyo thought the negotiations concerning the two other islands would follow.
In Gorbachev era, Japan once again reminded of its wish to return all the islands, offering considerable economic aid in return. According to different data, the offered aid ranged between $26 billion and $200 billion. At the same time, Tokyo urged the West to internationally press the USSR on the territorial issue.
On July 24, 1997, Ryutaro Hashimoto, in the new diplomatic concept called Eurasian Diplomacy, acknowledged it is impossible “to solve the northern territories issue by means of just one party’s victory and the other party’s loss”. Soon, Japan decided to animate the programs of cooperation with Russia in Sakhalin and the Far East.
In April 1998, at an informal meeting in Kawana, Japan suggested solving the territorial dispute by means of Russia’s acknowledging that the South Kurils is Japanese territory with the delay in the process of actual handover of the islands.
In February 2001, at a meeting in Irkutsk, Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori offered to divide the issue in two parts, that is to hold separate talks: on the handover of Shikotan and Habomai according to the 1956 declaration, and on the fate of Kunashir and Iturup. After Mori’s resignation, that policy was criticized in Japan, and Tokyo recoiled to tougher position – that Russia should give back all the four islands at once.
In January 2005, Japan’s Foreign Minister Nobutaka Matimura, once again proclaiming Japanese sovereignty over all disputed islands, explained that Tokyo would like so far to obtain from Russia just the fact’s acknowledging, putting off the actual handover of the islands, the terms of which might be subject to further talks.
In December 2006, Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Aso, in an off-the-record talk with journalists, threw in the offer to solve the territorial dispute on the pattern of the similar issue between Russia and China, that is to divide the disputed territory in half. Yet, Tokyo later disavowed that statement.
In 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered to Russian President Vladimir Putin to animate the bilateral cooperation in developing the Kurils, the Far East, and Siberia, so as to create favorable climate for solving the territorial dispute.
Andrei Ivanov
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 24, 2007
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