Russia and Japan 'almost' signed a peace treaty

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a meeting in Vladivostok, Russia on September 10, 2018. Photo: AFP/ VNA

This is the information revealed by the former head of the Japanese government in an interview with the Nikkei business newspaper. Speaking about the reasons that prevented the signing of a peace treaty at that time, Mr. Shinzo Abe mentioned “escalating tensions between Washington and Moscow” after a series of events in Ukraine in 2014.

The former Prime Minister of the Land of the Rising Sun also said that no matter what kind of agreement Japan and Russia tried to reach, he was still willing to dissolve the National Assembly and announce early elections, giving the Japanese people the right to speak out about the agreement between Tokyo and Moscow.

During that period, many Japanese media reported that the two countries were discussing the possibility of returning to Japan two of the four disputed islands in the archipelago that Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories. This information has never been officially confirmed.

In fact, Russia and Japan have been engaged in bilateral negotiations aimed at concluding a peace treaty since the mid-twentieth century. The most significant obstacle to this realization is the issue of ownership of the Southern Kuril Islands/Northern Territories.

In November 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting in Singapore and agreed that Moscow and Tokyo would accelerate peace treaty negotiations based on the 1956 Joint Declaration. This document put an end to the state of war and affirmed the Soviet government's willingness to return Shikotan Island and a group of small islands to Japan, on the condition that Tokyo would take control of them once a peace treaty was signed.