Tokyo Considers Reaching Broad Peace Agreement With Moscow in June 'Difficult' - Reports

TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th April, 2019) Japan believes that it will not be easy to implement its plan to reach a framework agreement on a peace treaty with Russia during the June talks between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, but it does not abandon this idea, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported on Thursday, citing unnamed governmental sources.

The Japanese government initially wanted the talks that would be held during Putin's visit, set to be conducted as part of the G20 summit in Osaka, scheduled for June 28-29, to pave the wave for finally signing a permanent peace deal, the news outlet specified.

"We have not given up on coming to a broad agreement in June, but it has effectively become difficult," a senior Japanese government official told the daily.

Meanwhile, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga stressed at a press conference on Wednesday that Putin and Abe were committed to putting an end to the Russian-Japanese territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands during their talks in June.

Russian-Japanese relations have long been complicated by the fact that the two nations have yet to sign a permanent World War II peace treaty. The deal has never been reached because of a disagreement over a group of four islands Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai that Russia has sovereignty over, but that are also claimed by Japan.

The two countries have been engaged in treaty talks since September. The states have expressed commitment to carry out the talks on the basis of the 1956 bilateral declaration, which stipulates, among other things, that Japan will regain control over Habomai islets and Shikotan in the Kuril Islands archipelago following the conclusion of a peace treaty with Russia. The status of the islands of Kunashir and Iturup is not covered by the 1956 declaration.