US puts pressure on Japan in negotiations over Kuril Islands
Journalists from Japanese television station TBS found letters from a former diplomat, Mr. Syun-ichi Matsumoto, who represented Tokyo at talks with the Soviet Union on the fate of the Kuril Islands.
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| Kuril Islands. Photo: Sputnik |
The documents state that US Secretary of State John Dulles pressured Japan to break the agreement.
"Secretary of State Dulles began to make absurd statements about the fact that if the Soviet Union acquired the Chisima Islands (historical Japanese name for the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin) then the Ryukyu Islands would belong to the United States," the diplomat said in a letter dated August 20, 1956.
The Ryukyu Islands in the East China Sea were occupied by the United States military after the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. Its largest island, Okinawa Island, was under US administration until 1972. It currently hosts a US military base.
After World War II, the islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai were ceded to the Soviet Union. In October 1956, the Soviet Union and Japan signed a Joint Declaration on ending the state of war between the two countries and restoring diplomatic relations.
The document stated that both sides renounced mutual claims arising from the war and Moscow renounced reparations claims against Tokyo.
