No Progress Reconfirmed

To improve bilateral relationship between two nations, Foreign Ministers of Japan and Russia had a meeting for the first time in these seven months on Friday. Although they reconfirmed continuing the negotiation for peace treaty, territory issue between those two nations showed no progress. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is going to visit Russia next month with no hope of settling long-time struggle over Northern Territory.

Basic purpose of Tokyo visit of Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, was to pave the way for the summit meeting between Abe and Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in a resort city on the coast of Black Sea, Sochi, planned on May 6^th. While Abe has been hoping Russia to come back in the framework of developed countries, Group 8, the Western nations, especially United States, were negative in including Russia, which had forcibly annexed Crimea of Ukraine.

Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fumio Kishida, showed frustration on current actions of Russia to justify its standpoint that Kuril Islands were territory of Russia. Russia has been active in building new military facilityes on the islands. “We need to refrain from hurting national sentiment each other for maintaining calm environment of the negotiation,” told Kishida to Lavrov. Having said that, Kishida emphasized the achievement of the meeting that they had a positive discussion to give momentum for finding acceptable result for both nations.

It is unclear whether the meeting was so successful for the Russian side. “The approach of Russia that we need to reconfirm the result of World War II has not changed,” said Lavrov in the press conference. Russia has been requiring Japan to admit that Kuril Islands became the territory of Russia as a result of World War II and negative on the attitude of Japan demanding solution of the territory issue before peace treaty. While Russia abides by the Joint Declaration in 1956, which requires Russia to return the islands of Shikotan and Habomai after having peace treaty, no compromise can see on territory negotiation.

In the circumstance of higher stakes in security in Northeast Asia, it is unrealistic for both country to settle that complicated territory issue soon. Abe will at most be able to achieve keeping momentum of dialogue with Putin in this negative trend of international politics surrounding Japan-Russian relations. To indicate major progress in the summit meeting should be pretense to innocent citizens of Japan.