With Less Than 2 Years Left In Office, Abe Nowhere Near Inking Peace Treaty With Russia

With Less Than 2 Years Left in Office, Abe Nowhere Near Inking Peace Treaty With Russia

Despite repeatedly stating intentions to put an end to the decades-old territorial dispute and sign a peace treaty with Russia, Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe is still far from achieving his ambitious goal as the politician's last term as head of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and, accordingly, the country's prime minister expires in September 2021, experts told Sputnik

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd January, 2020) Despite repeatedly stating intentions to put an end to the decades-old territorial dispute and sign a peace treaty with Russia, Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe is still far from achieving his ambitious goal as the politician's last term as head of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and, accordingly, the country's prime minister expires in September 2021, experts told Sputnik.

On Monday, Abe gave his annual policy speech at the parliament, where he once again reiterated Japan's unswerving intention to sign the long-pending treaty with Russia, stressing that his determination to "see it through" was shared by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nonetheless, the ambitious goal set by Abe would hardly be achieved during his tenure, Valery Kistanov, the head of the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian academy of Sciences, told Sputnik.

"I think that the issue of peace treaty and territorial dispute will not be resolved before the end of Abe's term. Despite the fact that the two leaders Abe and Putin have met 27 times already and held intensive negotiations at various fora and in various formats, it appears that the two countries are still taking opposing principled stances on the issue," Kistanov said.

Purnendra Jain, a professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Adelaide, echoed his assessment.

"Abe has been saying that he had created some environment to move ahead, but it seems to me that it is becoming more and more unrealistic, and I don't see how a peace treaty will be signed by 2021. It is completely beyond my imagination," he said in his comments to Sputnik.

In November 2018, Abe and Putin agreed to accelerate peace treaty talks on the basis of Soviet-era joint declaration. The document signed in 1956, among other things, stipulates that the Soviet Union would transfer the two disputed islands Habomai and Shikotan to Japan following the conclusion of the peace treaty. The year that followed the two leaders' agreement to use the declaration as basis for peace negotiations saw series of frequent meetings both between Putin and Abe and the nations' foreign ministers.

Yet, they have not resulted in any significant breakthroughs as hoped, while Russia's security concerns stemming from the US-Japan military alliance has apparently become one of main stumbling blocks in the signing of the long-pending peace treaty with Japan. The issue was once again raised at Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's annual press conference earlier this month, where he expressed the concern that Japan's alliance with the United States was used by the latter as a part of military strategy against Russia.

According to Jain, Russia is unlikely to leave its security concerns aside from the territorial dispute with Japan, but Tokyo would not bend either.

"Japan is not going to change its stance on its treaty with the US only to move ahead and sign a peace treaty with Russia," the expert said.

Coincidentally, Abe's latest remarks on the peace treaty came a day after he pledged to further bolster Japan's role in the alliance with the US during the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of a bilateral security treaty with the US - the very treaty prompted the Soviet Union to abandon peace treaty talks at the time as it viewed the pact as aimed against Moscow.

"While extending a hand to Russia with calls for signing the peace treaty, he is still expanding the Japan-US military cooperation, which hampers signing of the treaty in the first place," Kistanov said.

Kazuhiko Togo, a retired Japanese diplomat and the director of the Institute for World Affairs at Kyoto Sangyo University, on the other hand, asserted that Japan's determination to sign the peace treaty was consistent with the nation's overall policy toward "increase in independence" in foreign affairs, adding that Moscow would also benefit from strategic partnership with Tokyo.

"It is also in Russia's national interests to strengthen strategic partnership with Japan in such a turbulent international situation. I believe that if the two countries talk from this perspective, they can always find common ground in their foreign policies, including in security, and overcome the security concerns that the Russian side has raised," he underlined.

Ra Mason, a lecturer in international relations and Japanese foreign policy at the East Anglia University, similarly referred to Moscow's concerns over the US military presence in Japan as a "technical issue" that could be overcome, should there be sufficient political will on all sides.

"As such, the Trump administration's comparative indifference might prove to be a determining factor to, conversely, facilitating pro-activity from both Japan and Russia to strike while the iron is 'not so hot,'" Mason told Sputnik.