The territorial dispute between Russia and Japan can only be settled by mutual display of will by the two countries’ leaders, says the former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in a statement.
He was speaking in an interview with reporters in the run-up to his departure for Moscow in the capacity of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s special envoy. Japan claims four Kuril islands, namely Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai, making references to the 1855 Russo-Japanese Treaty on Trade and Borders.
Tokyo has made a return of the islands the condition, on which Japan would be ready to sign a peace treaty with Russia, a treaty that was never signed in the wake of the Second World War.
But Moscow points out that the southern Kuril Islands formed part of the USSR as a result of the war, so Russia’s sovereignty over the islands, formalized in official international documents, is unquestionable.
This story first appeared on Voice of Russia & is reposted here with permission.