PREVIEW - Russian, Japanese Leaders To Address Peace Treaty Issue At Tuesday Talks

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd January, 2019) Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are scheduled to hold high-level talks in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss the issue of signing a peace treaty that the two countries have been unable to conclude since the end of the WWII.

After talks with the Russian leader in Singapore in November, Abe announced his intentions to visit Russia in early 2019. During these talks, the two leaders agreed to enhance talks on a peace treaty's conclusion based on the 1956 Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration.

Last week, Moscow hosted the first round of talks on the conclusion of a permanent peace treaty between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Japanese counterpart, Taro Kono. Both ministers are expected to attend Tuesday's high-level talks as well, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

The issue of the four disputed islands, which Moscow calls the Kuril Islands and Tokyo dubs its Northern Territories, is expected to be high on the agenda during the high-level talks on Tuesday.

Russia and Japan have not signed a permanent peace treaty after the end of World War II as the two countries cannot agree on the territorial status of four islands that they both claim � Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai.

On October 19, 1956, the Soviet Union and Japan signed the joint declaration on ending the state of war and the restoration of diplomatic and consular relations. The Soviet leadership noted in the document that in meeting the wishes of Japan and taking into account the interests of Tokyo, Moscow agrees to transfer the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan, however, the transfer itself was meant to be made after the conclusion of a peace treaty between the parties. However, the Soviet Union annulled its commitments under the declaration after the conclusion of the Japanese-US security treaty in 1960.

The agreement between the two leaders to step up the negotiations based on the 1956 document signaled a significant step forward for both sides since Tokyo had been demanding the return of all four islands over the past decades, whereas Moscow had continued to hold on to its claims of sovereignty over the territory. Nevertheless, the atmosphere surrounding the talks and territorial dispute has been quite tense over the past few weeks.�

In his interview to the Asahi tv in early January, Abe claimed that transfer of the islands could only happen if the Russian residents of these territories agreed to it, adding that they would not be made to leave the islands. Tokyo's remarks presenting possible transfer of a part of the disputed territories as some kind of settled matter caused an outcry in Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Japanese ambassador to protest the move saying that such statements blatantly distort the essence of agreements between the two leaders and seek to artificially fuel tensions around bilateral talks.

The Russian foreign minister reiterated the inadmissibility of such rhetoric in the very beginning of last week's talks with his Japanese counterpart, stressing that the two leaders had agreed to conduct negotiations on this sensitive issue in a professional manner "without fueling controversial, unilateral rhetoric." Lavrov has been harsh in his remarks to press as well, saying that any progress on the peace treaty was impossible without Japan's recognition of WWII outcome in full, including Russia's sovereignty over all the islands of the South Kuril ridge.

The Russian public also snapped at Tokyo's statements about the disputed territories. On Sunday, protesters gathered at Suvorovskaya Square in Moscow to call for preserving territorial integrity of Russia and oppose possible handover of disputed Kuril Islands to Japan. Public discussions on the matter are also rather heated in Japan as some rallies are expected to take place in Japan on February 7 marking the so-called Northern Territories Day.

Yet, some rather noteworthy news came from Tokyo just on the eve of the Japanese leader's visit to Moscow. The Kyodo news agency reported that Abe was looking at the option of signing a peace treaty on the basis of the transfer of only two of disputed islands � Habomai and Shikotan � to end the decades-long standoff. At the same time, the news agency added that Japan saw the transfer of the two other islands, Kunashir and Iturup, accounting for 97 percent of disputed territories, "unrealistic."

The Kremlin commented on the media reports by saying that there were currently no specific options for a peace treaty between Russia and Japan at all as no one has officially offered anything. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged "everyone to be realistic" and pointed out out that "no one is going to give up their national interests."

Accumulated disagreements and contradicting signals coming from Moscow and Tokyo have made predicting the outcome of Tuesday's meeting very difficult. According to Toshihiko Ueno, a political science professor at the Sofia University in Tokyo, the upcoming talks are likely to be uneasy.

"Although the upcoming Japanese-Russian high-level talks will most likely be more difficult than ever, I would not make a pessimistic forecast," the expert said.

He pointed out that Moscow's stance to bring up the importance of recognizing the results of the WWII may only further complicate the negotiations.

"Of course, it is important for Japan to recognize the outcome of the World War II, as Lavrov said, but linking the current issues of concluding a peace treaty with historical problems, on the contrary, will only complicate negotiations," Ueno noted.

Viktor Kuzminkov, a senior research fellow at the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian academy of Sciences, was rather skeptic in his comments to Sputnik, saying Tokyo would hardly manage to negotiate the transfer of territories.

"I believe that there will be no agreements reached on the issue of sovereignty. We can agree on some form of cooperation, visa-free travel, but it seems to me that the transfer of sovereignty will not take place," he said.

Kuzminkov noted that the two sides, in particular, could agree on visa-free travel first for the disputed islands, then between Sakhalin and Hokkaido and, ultimately, between the two countries in general.

"It is necessary to agree on the conditions for catching fish in this region and provide some conditions so that they do not feel disadvantaged compared with other countries. So that they see that they are at least administratively not affected. This question can be solved, a peace treaty with Japan can be concluded to put an end to [Japan's] psychological trauma already," he noted.

Kuzminkov also warned against any attempts to rewrite the history, noting that such a step might prompt other countries unsatisfied by the results of the WWII to put forward their claims too.

"This will be a precedent for the discussion of the outcome of the World War II. There will also be countries that are also not satisfied with the outcome of the World War II. If Japan, for example, achieved this, then why would they not try to achieve the same?" he stressed.

Putin and Abe meet more frequently than other world leaders, with the upcoming talks in Moscow becoming their 25th meeting. Besides, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper has reported earlier that the Japanese leader wants to visit Russia again in spring 2019. Putin, on the other hand, will visit Japan in June to attend the G20 summit in Osaka and partake in the closing ceremony of the Russia-Japan cross-cultural year in Tokyo.