44°6′N146°42′E / 44.100°N 146.700°E /44.100; 146.700
Japan andRussia have aterritorial dispute over the four southernmostKuril Islands. The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands that stretch between the Japanese island ofHokkaido at their southern end and the RussianKamchatka Peninsula at their northern end. The islands separate theSea of Okhotsk from thePacific Ocean. The four disputed islands, like other islands in the Kuril chain which are not in dispute, were unilaterally annexed by theSoviet Union following theInvasion of the Kuril Islands at the end ofWorld War II. The disputed islands are under Russian administration as theSouth Kuril District and part ofthe Kuril District of theSakhalin Oblast (Сахалинская область,Sakhalinskaya oblast). They are claimed by Japan, which refers to them as its Northern Territories or Southern Chishima, and considers them part of theNemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture.
The islands in dispute are:
TheSan Francisco Peace Treaty[a], signed between the Allies and Japan in 1951, states that Japan renounces "all right, title and claim to the Kuril Islands", but does not explicitly recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over them.[2] Japan claims that at least some of the disputed islands are not a part of the Kuril Islands, and thus are not covered by the treaty.[3] Russia maintains that the Soviet Union's sovereignty over the islands was recognized in post-war agreements.[4] Japan and the Soviet Union ended their formal state of war with theSoviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 but did not sign a peace treaty. During talks leading to the joint declaration, the Soviet Union offered Japan the two smaller islands of Shikotan and the Habomai Islands in exchange for Japan renouncing all claims to the two larger islands of Iturup and Kunashir, but Japan declined the offer. This disagreement between the two-island offer made by the Soviet Union and Japan's demand of regaining two larger islands as well became the cornerstone for continuation of the dispute into the present day.[5]
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The first Russo-Japanese agreement to deal with the status ofSakhalin and theKuril Islands was the 1855Treaty of Shimoda, which first established official relations between theRussian Empire andTokugawa Japan. Article 2 of the Treaty of Shimoda, which provided for an agreement on borders, states "Henceforth the borders between Russia and Japan will pass between the islands Iturup (Etorofu) and Urup (Uruppu). The whole island of Iturup belongs to Japan and the whole island Urup and the other Kuril Islands to the north constitute possessions of Russia". The islands of Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, all lying to the south of Iturup, are not explicitly mentioned in the treaty and were understood at the time to be a non-disputed part of Japan. The treaty also specified that the island of Sakhalin/Karafuto was not to be partitioned but was to remain under a joint Russo-Japanese condominium.[6]
In the 1875Treaty of Saint Petersburg, Russia and Japan agreed that Japan would give up all rights to Sakhalin in exchange for Russia giving up all rights to the Kuril Islands in favor of Japan. However, a controversy remains as to what constitutes the Kuril Islands, due to translation discrepancies in the French official text of that treaty.[7]
TheRusso-Japanese War of 1904–05 was a military disaster for Russia.[8][9] The 1905Treaty of Portsmouth, concluded at the end of this war, gave the southern half of Sakhalin Island to Japan.
Although Japanoccupied parts of Russia's Far East during theRussian Civil War following theOctober Revolution, Japan did not formally annex any of these territories and they were depopulated by Japan by the mid-1920s.
Japan was a main ally ofNazi Germany, which the Soviet Union initially hadan understanding with, but found itself at war with fromJune 22, 1941. However, after theBattles of Khalkhin Gol ended theJapanese–Soviet Border War in 1939 and before the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, there was practically no hostile activity between the Soviet Union and theEmpire of Japan. Between 1939 and 1945, millions of Soviet and Japanese soldiers were facing each other along the Manchurian border. TheSoviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed in Moscow on April 13, 1941, and became effective on April 25, but was renounced by the Soviet Union on April 5, 1945. On May 8 Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies, which ended the war in Europe and started the secret three-month countdown for the Russians to start hostilities against Japan, as per theYalta Agreement. On August 9, 1945, just after midnight in Manchuria, theSoviets invaded Manchuria and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, beginning theSoviet–Japanese War. The Soviet Unioninvaded South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the subsequent days.
TheInvasion of the Kuril Islands took place between August 18 and September 3 (Japan had announcedits surrender August 15, and formally signed it September 2). The Japanese inhabitants of the Kurils were expelled two years later.[10] The United States had helped the preparation of the Soviet invasion throughProject Hula, transferring naval vessels to the Soviet Union.
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The modern Kuril Islands dispute arose in the aftermath of World War II and results from the ambiguities in and disagreements about the meaning of theYalta agreement (February 1945), thePotsdam Declaration (July 1945), and theTreaty of San Francisco (September 1951). The Yalta Agreement, signed by the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, stated:
The leaders of the three great powers – the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain – have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that: ... 2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz.: (a) The southern part of Sakhalin as well as the islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union; ... 3. The Kuril islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.
Japan and the US claimed that the Yalta agreement did not apply to the Northern Territories because they were not a part of the Kuril Islands, although US geographers have traditionally listed them as part of the Kuril chain. In a 1998 article in the journalPacific Affairs, Bruce Elleman, Michael Nichols and Matthew Ouimet argue that the US never accepted the cession of all the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union and has maintained from Yalta onward that it simply agreed at Yalta that Moscow could negotiate directly with Tokyo to come to a mutually acceptable solution, and that the US would support in such a peace agreement the Soviet acquisition of the Kurils.[11] As a key piece of evidence, the same article quotes an August 27, 1945, letter from U.S. presidentHarry Truman to Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin: "You evidently misunderstood my message [about the Kuril Islands] ... I was not speaking of any territory of the Soviet Republic. I was speaking of the Kurile Islands, Japanese territory, disposition of which must be made at a peace settlement. I was advised that my predecessor agreed to support in the peace settlement the Soviet acquisition of those islands." The Soviet Union—and subsequently, Russia—rejected this position.[11]: 494
The Potsdam Declaration states the following regarding the Japanese territories: "8. The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine".[12][13] The islands comprising the Northern Territories are not explicitly included in this list, but the US subsequently maintained, particularly during the preparation of the Treaty of San Francisco, that the phrase "and such minor islands as we determine" could be used to justify transferring the Northern Territories to Japan.[citation needed]
TheCairo Declaration of 1943 did not explicitly mention the Kuril Islands but stated: "Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed".[13]
Japan later claimed that the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration did not apply to the islands on the grounds that they had never belonged to Russia or been claimed by it since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1855, and thus they were not among the territories acquired by Japan "by violence and greed".[14]
A substantial dispute regarding the status of the Kuril Islands arose between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the preparation of the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951. The Treaty was supposed to be a permanent peace treaty between Japan and theAllied Powers of World War II. By that time, theCold War had already taken hold, and the position of the U.S. in relation to the Yalta and Potsdam agreements had changed considerably. The U.S. had come to maintain that the Potsdam Declaration should take precedence and that strict adherence to the Yalta agreement was not necessary since, in the view of the U.S., the Soviet Union itself violated several provisions of the Yalta agreement in relation to the rights of other countries.[15] The Soviet Union vehemently disagreed[16] and demanded that the U.S. adhere to its promises made to the Soviet Union in Yalta as a condition of the Soviet Union's entry into the war with Japan. A particular point of disagreement at the time was that the draft text of the treaty, while stating that Japan will renounce all rights to Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, did not state explicitly that Japan would recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over these territories.[17]
The Treaty of San Francisco was signed by 49 nations, including Japan and the United States, on September 8, 1951. Article (2c) states:
Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of theTreaty of Portsmouth of 5 September 1905.
The State Department later clarified that "the Habomai Islands and Shikotan ... are properly part of Hokkaido and that Japan is entitled to sovereignty over them". Britain and the United States agreed that territorial rights would not be granted to nations that did not sign the Treaty of San Francisco, and therefore the islands were not formally recognized as Soviet territory.[11]
The Soviet Union refused to sign the Treaty of San Francisco and publicly stated that the Kuril Islands issue was one of the reasons for its opposition to the Treaty. Japan signed and ratified the San Francisco treaty. However, both the Japanese government and most of the Japanese media currently claim[18] that already at the time of the 1951 San Francisco peace conference, Japan held that the islands of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands were technically not a part of the Kuril Islands and thus were not covered by the provisions of Article (2c) of the treaty. The timing of this claim is disputed by Russia and by some western historians.[19][20] In a 2005 article inThe Japan Times, journalist Gregory Clark writes that official Japanese statements, maps and other documents from 1951, and the statements by the head of the U.S. delegation to the San Francisco conference—John Foster Dulles—make it clear that at the time the San Francisco Treaty was concluded in October 1951, both Japan and the United States considered the islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu to be a part of the Kuril Islands and to be covered by Article (2c) of the Treaty.[3] Clark made a similar point in a 1992New York Times opinion column.[21]
In a 2001 book, Seokwoo Lee, a Korean scholar of international law, quotes the October 19, 1951, statement inJapan's Diet by Kumao Nishimura, Director of the Treaties Bureau of the Foreign Ministry of Japan, stating that both Etorofu and Kunashiri are a part of the Kuril Islands and thus covered by Article (2c) of the San Francisco Treaty.[22]
The U.S. Senate Resolution of April 28, 1952, ratifying of the San Francisco Treaty, explicitly stated that the Soviet Union had no title to the Kurils,[23] the resolution stating:
As part of such advice and consent the Senate states that nothing the treaty [San Francisco Peace Treaty] contains is deemed to diminish or prejudice, in favor of the Soviet Union, the right, title, and interest of Japan, or the Allied Powers as defined in said treaty, in and to South Sakhalin and its adjacent islands, the Kurile Islands, the Habomai Islands, the Island of Shikotan, or any other territory, rights, or interests possessed by Japan on December 7, 1941, or to confer any right, title, or benefit therein or thereto on the Soviet Union.
The U.S. maintains that until a peace treaty between Japan and Russia is concluded, the disputed Northern Territories remain occupied territory under Russian control viaGeneral Order No. 1.[11] According to the Russian Embassy in Japan, "A peace treaty has not yet been concluded between the two countries, due to Tokyo's groundless territorial claims to the southern Kuril Islands."[24]
During the 1956 peace talks between Japan and the Soviet Union, the Soviet side proposed to settle the dispute by returning Shikotan and Habomai to Japan. In the final round of the talks, the Japanese side accepted the weakness of its claim toIturup and Kunashiri and agreed to settle on the return of Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, in exchange for a peace treaty. On October 19, 1956, in Moscow, the Soviet Union and Japan signed theSoviet–Japanese Joint Declaration. The Declaration ended the state of war between the Soviet Union and Japan, which technically had still existed between the two countries since August 1945,[25] and stipulated that "The U.S.S.R. and Japan have agreed to continue, after the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between them, negotiations for the conclusion of a peace treaty. Hereby, the U.S.S.R., in response to the desires of Japan and taking into consideration the interest of the Japanese state, agrees to hand over to Japan the Habomai and the Shikotan Islands, provided that the actual changing over to Japan of these islands will be carried out after the conclusion of a peace treaty."[26]
The Joint Declaration did not settle the Kuril Islands dispute, however. In particular, thedisagreement emerged over the interpretation of the territorial provisions of the Declaration, despite the Soviet efforts to avoid precisely that. The Soviet position was that the Declaration resolved the dispute and that no territorial demarcation will be discussed beyond promised transfer of Shikotan and Habomai, whilst Japan maintains that negotiations for conclusion of a peace treaty necessarily imply continuation of negotiations over the two larger islands as well.[27]
Continuation of the deadlock is often attributed to the United States' intervention in the negotiations,[28][19][29] when the US warned Japan that a withdrawal of the Japanese claim on the other islands would mean the U.S. would keep bothOkinawa andthe Ryukyu Islands, while asserting that the San Francisco Peace Treaty "did not determine the sovereignty of the territories renounced by Japan", but that "Japan does not have the right to transfer sovereignty over such territories",[30][19][3] although this attribution is problematic, since the decision to stand firm on demanding "four island return" (rather than following initial "minimal requirement" line of demanding only Shikotan and Habomai) was made by Japan long before the United States' decision to "morally support" these claims.[28]
The question of whether Etorofu and Kunashiri islands are a part of the Kurils, and thus whether they are covered by Article (2c) of the Treaty of San Francisco, remains one of the main outstanding issues in the Kuril Islands dispute. Based on a 1966 book by a former Japanese diplomat and a member of the 1956 Japanese delegation for the Moscow peace talks, Clark traces the first Japanese claim that Etorofu and Kunashiri islands are not a part of the Kurils to the 1956 negotiations on the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956. The Soviet Union rejected that view at the time, and Russia has subsequently maintained the same position.
The positions of the two sides have not substantially changed since the 1956 Joint Declaration, and a permanent peace treaty between Japan and Russia has not been concluded.[31]
On July 7, 2005, theEuropean Parliament issued an official statement recommending the return of the territories in dispute,[32] which Russia immediately protested.
As late as 2006, the Russian government ofVladimir Putin offered Japan the return of Shikotan and the Habomais (about 6% of the disputed area) if Japan would renounce its claims to the other two islands, referring to the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, which promised Shikotan and the Habomais would be ceded to Japan once a peace treaty was signed.[33][34][35]
Japan has offered substantial financial aid to the Kuril Islands if they are handed over. However, by 2007, residents of the islands were starting to benefit from economic growth and improved living standards, arising in particular from expansion in the fish processing industry. As a result, it is thought that islanders are less likely to be won over by Japanese offers of financial support.[36]
On February 7, 2008,Reuters reported that Japanese prime ministerYasuo Fukuda stated that he had received a letter from Russian president Vladimir Putin in which Putin expressed a willingness to resolve the territorial dispute, and proposed a new round of talks to do so.[37]
The dispute over the Kuril Islands was exacerbated on July 16, 2008, when the Japanese government published new school textbook guidelines directing teachers to say that Japan has sovereignty over the Southern Kuril Islands. TheRussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on July 18, "[these actions] contribute neither to the development of positive cooperation between the two countries, nor to the settlement of the dispute" and reaffirmed its sovereignty over the islands.[38]
Japanese prime ministerTarō Asō and Russian presidentDmitry Medvedev met in Sakhalin on February 18, 2009, to discuss the Kuril Islands issue. Aso said after the meeting that they had agreed to speed up efforts to resolve the dispute so that it would not be left to future generations to find a solution.[39]
Japan pays Russia millions of dollars each year for fishing rights around the disputed islands, effectively acknowledging Russian ownership of the islands.[40]
Russia has given several concessions to Japan in the dispute. For example, Russia has introduced visa-free trips for Japanese citizens to the Kuril Islands. Japan's fishermen are also allowed to catch fish in Russia's claimed exclusive economic zone.[41]
The Russian Head of the Kuril Region has called for dropping the visa-free programme[42] and Japanese fishermen were fired upon for allegedly fishing illegally in Russian waters.[43] A Japanese fisherman was shot dead by a Russian patrol in 2006.[44]
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was quoted by Reuters on September 29, 2010, as saying he planned a visit to the disputed islands soon and calling the South Kurils "an important region of our country".[45] The Japanese Foreign Ministry criticized Medvedev's statement, calling it regrettable. Many analysts also viewed that the announcement of the visit is correlated with the recent joint declaration regarding World War II between China and Russia, and linked to theSenkaku Islands dispute between Japan and Taiwan.[46] On November 1, Medvedev visited Kunashir Island, sparking a row with Japan.[47] The visit by Medvedev was seen in Moscow as a signal to Japan that its loudspeaker diplomacy on the islands would fail.[48] Japanese prime ministerNaoto Kan called this visit "impermissible rudeness"[49] and subsequently recalled his country's ambassador to Moscow.[50] The day after the visit, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Medvedev planned more visits to the disputed islands, sparking a warning from Tokyo.[51]
On February 10, 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered advanced weapons to be deployed on the Kuril Islands, "in order to ensure the security of the islands as an integral part of Russia". On February 15, plans for deploying advanced anti-air missiles systems on the Islands were announced.[52] According to a military source interviewed byRussia Today, as part of the reinforcements, the18th Machine Gun Artillery Division may be upgraded to a modern motorized infantry brigade. The division is to receive an air defense brigade, possibly armed withS-400 SAM systems, according to the Russian General Staff.[53] The Russian military has also announced intention to deploy the newMistral class amphibious assault ships, and oneSteregushchy classcorvette in itsPacific Fleet to protect the islands. Russia signed a deal withFrance in January 2011 to buy four such vessels.[citation needed] However, the deal has since been canceled.
On March 25, 2016, Russian Minister of DefenceSergey Shoygu announced thatBal rocket systems in Kunashir,Bastion in Iturup andEleron-3UAVs are going to be stationed on the Kuril Islands within that year.[citation needed]
On February 7, 2013, RussianSu-27 fighter jets entered airspace over Japaneseterritorial waters north of the island of Hokkaido.Japan Air Self-Defense ForceF-2s were scrambled in response. Russia had been conducting scheduled flights over the Kuril Islands, but a spokesman for theRussian Air Force said that none of their aircraft entered Japanese airspace. This is the first incursion by Russian aircraft since 2008.[54][55]
After winning the2012 Japanese election, Prime MinisterShinzō Abe made good on promises to restart talks on the disputed nature of the islands. At the end of April 2013, he visited Moscow for discussion with Russian presidentVladimir Putin. Abe said: "The potential for cooperation has not been unlocked sufficiently and it is necessary to increase the cooperation between our countries as partners"; he added that he intended to have a good personal relationship with Putin as a basis for resolving the dispute.[56]
Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and Russian president Vladimir Putin met at theEastern Economic Forum, which was held at theFar Eastern Federal University inVladivostok.[57]
Russian President and Japanese Prime minister met in Eastern Economic Forum in September 2018. Putin said, "We agreed to hold the third Japanese–Russian business mission to the South Kuril Islands by the end of this year, after which the fourth round of negotiations on joint activities will take place."[citation needed]
On September 12, 2018, Russian presidentVladimir Putin offered Japanese prime ministerShinzo Abe a peace treaty "before the end of the year, without any preconditions". Abe did not respond. Japanese Chief Cabinet SecretaryYoshihide Suga said "there is absolutely no change to our country's perspective of resolving the problem of rights over the Northern Territories before sealing a peace treaty".[58]
At theThirteenth East Asia Summit (November 2018) inSingapore, Shinzo Abe followed up on Vladimir Putin's proposal from September in Vladivostok. He said that the leaders would seek a peace treaty to the terms of the 1956 Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration. The declaration gave Japan the Habomai islet group and Shikotan while the Soviet Union claimed the remaining islands, but the United States did not allow the 1956 treaty. Putin and Abe agreed that the terms of the 1956 deal would be part of a bilateral peace treaty.[59]
The Japanese foreign ministerTaro Kono visited Moscow and held talks on the Kuril Islands dispute with Russian foreign ministerSergey Lavrov on January 14, 2019. At the conclusion of their meeting, Lavrov said that they agreed on wanting to increase ties between the two countries but serious differences remained between the Russian and Japanese positions on the issue. He also said that Japan must recognize them as sovereign Russian territory as a start. In a statement to reporters he had said "Russia's sovereignty over the islands isn't subject to discussion. They are part of the territory of the Russian Federation."[60][61] A couple days later on January 16, Lavrov questioned whether or not Japan has accepted the result of World War II.[62]
A meeting between Vladimir Putin and Shinzō Abe on January 22 also did not bring about breakthrough.[63]
In October 2020, Russia said it planned to deploy an anti-air missile system for military drills on the Kuril Islands.[64] On December 1, 2020,Russian Defence Ministry's Zvezda TV station reported that Russia deployed several S-300V4 versions of theS-300VM missile system for combat duty on the disputed islandIturup.[64] There were already short-range anti-aircraft missiles systems on Iturup.[64]
On July 26, 2021, Russian prime ministerMikhail Mishustin visited the Iturup Island. Mishustin said Moscow planned to set up a special economic zone with no customs duties and a reduced set of taxes on the island chain.[65]
On March 7, 2022, Prime Minister of JapanFumio Kishida declared that the southern Kurils are "a territory peculiar to Japan, a territory in which Japan has sovereignty."[66] On March 8, Foreign MinisterYoshimasa Hayashi described the four islands as an "integral part" of Japan.[67] This was in response to theRussian invasion of Ukraine.[67] The Japanese leadership had been reluctant to use language that could be seen as provocative by Russia when discussing the islands in recent years. WhenShinzo Abe was asked if he considered the islands to be an integral part of Japan in 2019, he declined to respond so as not to damage negotiations with Russia. However, following the outbreak of Russia's war against Ukraine and theimplication of sanctions against Russia, the Japanese government has returned to a more hardline stance on the islands as shown by Kishida's statement.[68]
On March 21, Russia announced its withdrawal from peace treaty talks with Japan and freeze of joint economic projects related to the disputed Kuril Islands due to sanctions imposed by Japan over Ukraine.[69]
On March 25, Russia started a military drill with over 3,000 troops and hundreds of vehicles on the Kuril Islands, including the disputed islands.[70]
On March 31, Japan redesignated the disputed islands as being under an "illegal occupation" in a draft for the 2022Diplomatic Bluebook.[71]
On June 7,Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswomanMaria Zakharova announced Russia's intent to cancel a 1998 agreement with Japan allowing Japanese fishermen to operate near the southern Kuril Islands, claiming that Japan is not meeting the financial obligations outlined in the agreement.[72]
On September 5, a document was published signed by Prime MinisterMikhail Mishustin about Russia's unilateral withdrawal from a visa agreement which allowed former Japanese residents to visit the disputed islands without visas.[73] The Russian lawmaker said this was due to Japan's participation ininternational sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war.[73]
On February 7, 2023, the 168th anniversary of the 1855Treaty of Shimoda, Japan reaffirmed its position that it considers the four islands to be illegally occupied by Russia. In a statement,Fumio Kishida stated that "It is completely unacceptable that the Northern Territories have yet to be returned since the Soviet Union's illegal occupation of them 77 years ago".[74] This was the first time in 5 years that the Japanese government had used the term 'illegal occupation' when referring to the four islands.
On March 22, 2023, Russia said it deployed a division of itsBastion coastal defense missile systems toParamushir. Defence MinisterSergei Shoigu said it was to bolster Russian security around the Kuril Islands and partly in response to the United States efforts to "contain" Russia and China.[75]
On April 21, 2023, Russia's prosecutor general designated the League of Residents of Chishima and Habomai Islands (Chishima Renmei) as "an undesirable organization".[76] These former residents of the islands are likely barred from visiting the four disputed islands.[76]
Japan's current view of the dispute is given in the official pamphlet of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs:[77]
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In Japan, there are various private groups cooperating with local and national government to encourage the Japanese people to push for the return of the islands. One man whose family was evicted from the islands, Kenjirō Suzuki,[79] heads the Tokachi branch of the League ofChishima Habomai Islands Residents (Chishima is the Japanese name for the Kuril Islands).[80] In 2008, the main organization had a budget of approximately 187 millionyen (US$1.7 million).[81]
In 2018 theNational Museum of Territory and Sovereignty (currently located in the Toranomon Mitsui Building,Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) was established by the Japanese government to raise public awareness of Japaneseterritorial rights issues concerning the Kuril Islands dispute, as well as issues concerning territorial claims toTakeshima andSenkaku Islands.[82]
Many former Japanese residents of the disputed islands and their descendants live in Japan, and since 1964 some have been allowed to visit family graves for humanitarian reasons. However, they have long sought easier access, and the ability to land on islands other than Kunashir. In 2018, Russia started to allow visits to the smaller islands in the archipelago, under a new system involving checks of tour ships as they approached from the sea. The new procedure to process entry requests to the four Russian-held islands was expected to reduce travel time from five hours to about three hours.[83][84]
Russia maintains that all the Kuril Islands, including those that Japan calls the Northern Territories, are legally a part of Russia as a result of World War II, and the acquisition was as proper as any other change of international boundaries following the war. Moscow cites the following points:
On December 21, 2018, Russian president Vladimir Putin said at his annual news conference that the United States' military presence in Japan was complicating the search for a formal peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo. Putin told reporters that Moscow was concerned by the deployment of a U.S. air defense system in Japan.[85]
In March 2022, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy Chair of theSecurity Council of Russia, admitted that Russia was never serious about reaching a territorial agreement.[86] He said: "Obviously, we would never have found any consensus with Japan on the island issue … Negotiations about the Kurils always had a ritualistic character. The new version of the constitution of the Russian Federation [which was introduced in 2020] directly states that our country's territories are not subject to alienation. The question is closed."[86]
In Russia, most of the population and mass media strongly oppose any territorial concessions to Japan. A common view is that the Soviet Union won the Kuril Islands during World War II and is entitled to keep them regardless of the prior history of the disputed territories. Many believe that taking these islands away from Japan was a just reward for the Soviet Union's sacrifices during World War II and for its agreement to enter the war against Japan at the request of its allies.[87][88]Zemlyak, a Russian political group active inKunashir during the 1990s, was an exception; it advocated a return of the islands to Japanese sovereignty.[89][90]
Public polling in Russia has indicated consistent and overwhelming opposition to returning the islands to Japan. According to a July 2009 poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), 89% of respondents were against territorial concessions to Japan in the Kuril Islands dispute, compared to 76% from a similar poll in 1994.[citation needed] A May 2016 poll showed that the percentage of respondents that said they would support giving the islands to Japan was 7%. In November 2018 a similar poll was conducted, and the number supporting giving the islands was at 17%.[91]
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SomeAinu also claim the Kuril Islands, on the basis that their ethnic group inhabited the archipelago and Sakhalin prior to the arrival of Japanese and Russian settlers in the 19th century.[92]
In 2004, the small Ainu community living in Kamchatka Krai wrote a letter toVladimir Putin, urging him to reconsider any move to award the Southern Kuril Islands to Japan. In the letter they blamed the Japanese, the Tsarist Russians, and the Soviets for crimes against the Ainu such as killings and assimilation, and they also urged him to recognize the Japanese genocide against the Ainu people, a request which was turned down by Putin.[93]
European Union: TheEuropean Parliament issued a resolution "Relations between the EU,China and Taiwan and Security in the Far East", adopted on July 7, 2005, which called on Russia to return to Japan the "occupied" South Kuril Islands.[94]
United States: As of 1999[update] the United States maintained that until a peace treaty between Japan and Russia is concluded, the disputed Northern Territories remain under Russian control viaGeneral Order No. 1.[11] In 2014, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf stated that the United States recognized Japan's sovereignty over the islands.[95] Since 2018, the US government has required people seeking permanent residency (known as agreen card) to list Japan as their birthplace if they were born on the four disputed islands.[96]
People's Republic of China once supported the Soviet Union's claim over the islands in the 1950s, however, after theSino-Soviet split in the 1960s, China then turned to support Japanese sovereignty of the islands. After theSino-Soviet border conflict in 1969, maps published in China began to mark the islands as Japanese territory with a note "Occupied by Russia".[97] During a news conference on July 27, 2021, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersonZhao Lijian commented on the issue of Russian–Japanese dispute of the islands. He said, "It is China's consistent belief that the outcomes of the victoriousanti-fascist war should be earnestly respected and upheld." Russia often cites "the results of the victorious war against fascism" to justify its ownership of the islands following the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II. By saying "the results be respected", China apparently accepted the Russian argument.[98] During a March 2023 meeting in Moscow,General Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyXi Jinping reportedly told Putin that China "does not take either side" regarding the territorial dispute.[99] This is a shift to neutrality compared toChairmanMao Zedong who in 1964 said the islands belonged to Japan.[99]
Republic of Korea is officially neutral in the Russia–Japan conflict over the islands.[100]
Ukraine's national parliament, theVerkhovna Rada, voted on October 7, 2022, to recognize the Kuril Islands as integral Japanese territories, illegally occupied by the Russian Federation.[101] The same day PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree recognizing the Kuril Islands as territory of Japan temporarily occupied by Russia.[102]
Iran has called for bilateral negotiations between Japan and Russia over the ownership of the Kuril Islands.[103][104]
The meeting between the leaders of two countries that took place on May 5, 2016, inMoscow was expected to make progress in the resolution of a prolonged territorial disputes. However, Japanese prime ministerShinzo Abe and Russian presidentVladimir Putin focused on the "current state and the prospects of development of bilateral cooperation in trade and economy as well as in the humanitarian field".[105][106] Close to the end of May,Sergey Shoygu, the Russian Defence Minister, announced that Russia is ready to protect the islands against foreign air traffic over the islands by positioning defence systems along the main islands.[107] Furthermore, on June 8, 2015, there was an order from the Defence Minister to expedite the construction of military facilities on Iturup and Kunashir islands.[108] This news generated a wave of Japanese dissatisfaction. Although Japan objected to the actions of Russia, the latter did not show any signs for changing its plans.[107] On November 19, 2018, Kremlin spokesmanDmitry Peskov stated that upcoming talks about resolving a dispute with Japan over a group of islands claimed by Tokyo would not necessarily result in Russia relinquishing them.[109]
A Japanese online resource[110] reports that military infrastructure that is springing up in the Kuril Islands is believed to be part of the future plan of "Northern Sea Route", a sea route between theKara Sea in the Arctic and the Pacific Ocean. The source believes that the route might be in hand to Russia since its power in the Pacific has been weakened for the last several decades.[110][107] Moreover, the transfer of the Kurils to Japan would escalate territorial disputes Russia has with other countries.[111]
In 1956, on the occasion of the restoration of bilateral diplomatic relations, Moscow officially stated that it was willing to transfer the two smaller islands to Japan following the conclusion of a peace treaty. As confirmed by Vladimir Putin in 2000 and again in 2012, this remains Moscow's position (Soejima and Komaki 2012). Japanese leaders, however, have consistently declined to accept this offer, drawing attention to the fact that Shikotan and Habomai represent only 7 percent of the disputed territory (Prime Minister Noda cited in Nihon Keizai Shinbun 2012). Despite the passage of much time and considerable diplomatic effort, the sides have essentially been unable to proceed beyond this impasse.
The fabled Russian military machine proved to be inept and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 was a slaughterhouse and a disaster. … Brest was a transit station and camp for the army, and the city was full of soldiers and reservists returning from the disastrous Russo-Japanese War.
Gatrell has asserted that the navy, in contrast to the army, was not underfunded and the armament requirements of the Navy Ministry were satisfied, since most of the money was spent on the construction and repair of vessels. In this sense he attributed the navy's disastrous performance in the Russo-Japanese War to the mismanagement of adequate resources and enforced economies impairing the training of crews.
Charge: [...] Likewise, the Treaty States that southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands are to be detached from Japan but does not state, as previously promised by the United States, that these territories should be handed over to the Soviet Union.Reply: [...] As regards South Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, the treaty carries out the provisions of the Potsdam surrender terms, the only agreement by which Japan and the Allied powers as a whole are bound. So long as other governments have rights under the Yalta Agreement which the Soviet Union has not fulfilled, there is at least question as to whether the Soviet Union can, 'with clean hands', demand the fulfillment of the parts of that agreement it likes".
Japan's dispute with Russia has divided the two countries for more than half a century, preventing them from signing a formal peace treaty to conclude World War II.
After a possible transfer of the Kuril Islands to Japan border issues with countries such as China, Estonia, and Finland may escalate.
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