The latest talks of Russian and Japanese foreign and defense ministers showed that Moscow and Tokyo had different opinions on some issues, but those very differences underscored the need for meetings in 2+2 format
TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st May, 2019) The latest talks of Russian and Japanese foreign and defense ministers showed that Moscow and Tokyo had different opinions on some issues, but those very differences underscored the need for meetings in 2+2 format.The talks were held in Tokyo on Thursday and Friday. The ministers managed to touch upon a large number of topics, from security to economic projects.
The talks served as the precursor to the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Their meeting will be held in late June in the Japanese city of Osaka, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. It will take place on the sidelines of the G20 summit on June 29.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono has mentioned that his Friday talks with Lavrov would be the fourth ministerial meeting this year.
"Such frequent consultations are manifestation of the desire of both sides to make the summit between the leaders of our countries, which is scheduled during the visit of President Putin to Japan next month, productive," Kono told reporters.
However, Lavrov remarked earlier in the day that the frequent Russian-Japanese meetings did not "automatically" mean that the two countries were in complete agreement.
Russian military activity on the Kuril Islands and Japan's missile defense systems emerged as the two contentious points.
Japan has told Russia that it considers the military build-up on the disputed Kuril Islands unacceptable, Kono said. In response, Lavrov reaffirmed Russia's position "that the Russian armed forces are operating in their sovereign territory, as is customary under international law."
Moscow expressed its concerns over Washington's plans to deploy a US-designed missile defense system to Japan, while Tokyo reiterated that Japan's missile defense systems, including Aegis Ashore, were needed strictly for defense and were not targeting Russia.
"As previously, the 2+2 talks revealed the major differences in the countries' positions on security issues ... These disagreements demonstrate the wide gap in security thinking between Japan and Russia. Yet these differences can actually be seen as a justification for the 2+2 format since it provides a forum to address and hopefully reduce some of these points of friction," James Brown, an associate professor and academic program coordinator for international affairs at the Temple University Japan Campus, told Sputnik.
At the same time, the Japanese foreign minister remarked on the positive changes in bilateral relations.
"Despite the fact that only [several] weeks have passed since our previous meeting, some positive shifts in Japan-Russia relations have been emerging," Kono said at beginning of the talks.
Regarding the international security, the two countries agreed to cooperate on North Korea's denuclearization. Russia has presented to Japan joint Russian-Chinese proposals to resolve the North Korean crisis, Lavrov said.
The status of the Kuril Islands remains a major issue in Russian-Japanese relations. The disagreement over the islands prevented Japan and the Soviet Union from signing a formal peace treaty after the World War II.
Lavrov remarked on Friday that Russia had never given up on the 1956 Soviet-Japanese joint declaration providing the basis for peace treaty negotiations between the two countries. The Russian foreign minister stressed that the long-pending peace treaty between the two countries would be impossible without recognizing the results of World War II. The joint declaration stipulated that the Soviet Union would hand over two of the disputed islands as a "gesture of goodwill" after signing the treaty, Lavrov underlined.
"The very fact that 'goodwill' of the Soviet Union and 'consideration of the interests of the Japanese people' are mentioned as the basis for such a perspective [transfer of the two islands] means only one thing � that at the time of signing of the declaration these islands were seen by both sides as an integral part of the Soviet territory. It would be practically impossible to achieve progress based on the declaration without recognizing this fact," Lavrov added.
Brown believes that "the talks about a peace treaty have indeed reached an impasse" and the territorial dispute is "unresolvable" at the moment.
"I do not expect anything to change during the remainder of Abe's time in office. As with every other post-war Japanese prime minister, Abe will not be able to resolve this dispute," the international affairs scholar said.
At the same time, Kazuhiko Togo, a retired Japanese diplomat and the director of the Institute for World Affairs at Kyoto Sangyo University, believes that the talks are not deadlocked.
Lavrov's remark that he was planning to promote the negotiations based on the 1956 declaration "shows the intention of the two sides not to just say 'we have deadlocked here,' though admitting the existence of certain difficulties," Togo told Sputnik.
For Togo, the peace treaty could well be signed "during the tenure of Abe and Putin."
According to Brown, Japan has given up on concluding a peace agreement in June and will instead try "to achieve progress on the joint economic projects on the disputed islands."
Lavrov remarked that the two countries needed to find new formats for economic cooperation on the Kuril Islands.
"These projects have been discussed since December 2016, yet still the key issues regarding legal jurisdiction and visa-free access to the islands for Japanese participants in the projects have not been settled. Ahead of the G20, the countries' diplomats will continue to work hard to resolve these questions but time is short. It is possible that at the G20 the sides will still not have finalised arrangements for the joint projects," Brown said.
Meanwhile, Togo is hoping for "the next summit to become an important step toward fundamental advancement in the Japan-Russia relations, including signing a peace treaty."
The two countries' diplomats have already begun setting the stage for the talks to come Lavrov said he had invited his Japanese counterpart to visit Russia. In terms of defense, more than 30 joint events are planned for this year, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu after talks with his Japanese counterpart Takeshi Iwaya.
