A peace treaty with Japan? No rush, says Russia

MUNICH, Feb 17, 2019, Kyodo. Russia has no time-frame for agreeing a post-war peace treaty with Japan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, after he and Japanese counterpart Taro Kono made scant progress in talks, reported the South China Morning Post.

It is a blow for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, believed to be setting his sights on reaching a broad treaty agreement in June when Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to visit Japan for the Group of 20 summit.

“The Russian side has no time-frame. We explained to the Japanese side calmly” that nothing could be scheduled, Lavrov told reporters Saturday after talks in Munich on the sidelines of an annual security conference.

Deep divisions remain over a decades-old territorial dispute.

Lavrov reiterated Japan should recognise the acquisition by Moscow of four islands off the coast of Hokkaido as the outcome of the second world war, while Tokyo maintains the islands were illegally seized by the Soviet Union following Japan’s 1945 surrender.

Kono told reporters after the meeting that treaty talks cannot be concluded “overnight” and that both countries need to continue negotiations “patiently”.

The village of Malokurilskoye on the island of Shikotan, Southern Kurils, Russia. Photo: Reuters
“We had very deep discussions to find a solution that is acceptable to both sides” he said without elaborating.

The two ministers agreed to another round of talks in Japan. Japanese Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeo Mori, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, will meet soon to discuss the schedule.

The Munich meeting was a follow-up to a summit between Abe and Putin in Moscow, in January, when the leaders discussed the issue of the islands on the basis of a 1956 joint declaration, but made little headway.

Abe and Putin agreed in November to accelerate treaty talks based on the joint declaration, which mentions the transfer from Moscow to Tokyo of the smaller two of the four islands – Shikotan and the Habomai islet group – once a peace pact is concluded.

But the likelihood of an immediate breakthrough seems slim. Not only do the countries have differing interpretations of the joint declaration, but opposition lawmakers in Japan have taken issue with Abe’s perceived shift in policy to seek the return of two, rather than all four, of the islands.

Both Abe and Kono have refrained from disclosing details of the ongoing negotiations.

Moscow, for its part, demands Japan first recognise the acquisition of the islands as the outcome of the war, and is seen as reluctant to return the territories given the presence of US military forces in Japan.

The latest talks between Kono and Lavrov were held after the United States announced in early February its withdrawal from a cold war-era nuclear arms control treaty.

Lavrov said this month there is a “certain link” between the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Kuril Islands chain, of which the four disputed islands form a part, according to Russia’s Tass news agency.

He also took issue with Japan’s planned instalment of US land-based Aegis Ashore missile defence systems, Tass reported.

Japan is not part of the 1987 treaty that bans the development and possession of land-based missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500km.

The dispute over the islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia, has prevented the conclusion of a peace treaty to formally end second world war hostilities.