Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi will visit Russia in mid-December, an agreement was reached on Friday in Nagoya at his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, deputy foreign secretary of the Japanese Foreign Ministry Atsushi Kaifu told reporters.
“Both ministers discussed how to promote consultations, including on a peace treaty. They shared the opinion that if the situation allows, Motegi will visit Russia in mid-December”, – Kaifu said.
Lavrov and Motegi met on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial meeting in Nagoya.
According to Kaifu, the meeting between Lavrov and Motegi lasted 45 minutes. The ministers spoke in favor of realizing the potential of cooperation between the two countries and agreed next year to hold intensive consultations on the implementation of joint projects.
Motegi was appointed to the post of Foreign Minister of Japan in September. At the end of the same month, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, his first meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took place and an invitation was sent to the Japanese Minister in Moscow.
The “eight points” of cooperation between the two countries include areas such as increasing life expectancy, improving the urban environment, radically expanding cooperation between small and medium businesses, energy, diversifying industry in Russia and increasing productivity, promoting the industrial development of the Far East and creating an export base there, cooperation in the field of latest technology, a dramatic expansion of human exchanges.
Japan claims the South Kuril Islands of Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup and Habomai, citing a bilateral Treaty on Trade and Borders of 1855. In 1956, the USSR and Japan signed the Joint Declaration, in which Moscow agreed to consider the possibility of transferring Japan to Habomai and Shikotan after the conclusion of a peace treaty, and the fate of Kunashir and Iturup was not affected. The USSR hoped that the Joint Declaration would put an end to the dispute. Japan, on the other hand, considered the document only part of the solution to the problem, without renouncing claims to all islands.
Subsequent negotiations did not lead to anything, the peace treaty at the end of World War II was never signed. Moscow’s position is that the South Kuril Islands became part of the USSR following the Second World War and that Russian sovereignty over them, having the appropriate international legal design, is not in doubt.
Following the meeting of the leaders of Russia and Japan in Singapore on November 14, 2018, the Japanese prime minister said that the parties agreed to accelerate the negotiation process on a peace treaty on the basis of the 1956 Joint Declaration. This was a serious concession from Japan, since until now its official position was the demand for the transfer of Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan and Habomai, and only after that – the conclusion of a peace treaty.
In December 2016, during a visit to Japan, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to work out the possibility of joint economic activities in the southern Kuril Islands. In 2017 and 2018, visits by representatives of government and business circles of Japan to the Kuril Islands took place in order to study specific project prospects on the spot. According to the agreement, this activity should not violate the legal positions of both countries.