TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th March, 2021) Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has announced its intention to promote dialogue with Russia on signing a peace treaty on the basis of previous agreements, including the 1956 Joint Declaration by the Soviet Union and Japan.
The prime minister recalled that during his first phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which took place last September, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to expedite negotiations on a peace treaty based on the 1956 Soviet-Japanese joint declaration.
"Our position to promote the negotiations on the basis of the previously reached agreements has not changed. It is not easy to solve the outstanding problem of the 70 post-war years, but I intend, proceeding from the basic position, to make every effort to solve the territorial problem and conclude a peace treaty," Suga said at a session of the Japanese lower house's budget committee.
The relations between the two countries have long been complicated by the fact that they have never signed a permanent peace treaty following World War II. The main stumbling block is their dispute over a group of four islands � Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and Habomai � referred to as the Southern Kurils by Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan.
In November 2018, then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Putin agreed to accelerate peace treaty talks on the basis of the Soviet-era joint declaration. The document stipulates, among other things, that the Soviet Union would transfer Habomai and Shikotan to Japan following the conclusion of a peace treaty. The agreement by the two leaders to use the declaration as the basis for peace negotiations spurred a series of meetings held the following year by Putin and Abe and the countries' foreign ministers.
