Before his Meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin today in Moscow Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushed the expectations are high. In the Cabinet, the Prime Minister said that he was going to do for an early peace Treaty with Russia, “everything”. At the grave of his father, the former foreign Minister, Shintaro Abe, he had recently sworn that he would solve the since the Second world war, the latent conflict with Russia.
father Abe had asked before his death in 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, may he give Japan the South Kuril back. The Kremlin took that as an Affront. Apparently, my Abe continued, Moscow had to return to Japan the four Islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the archipelago Habomai, which Moscow since the Second world war in a controlled manner.
Lawrows question
Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear that Moscow was negotiating over the South Kuril. Japan had to finally “recognise the outcome of the Second world war”. He asked: “Why is Japan the only country in the world that can’t accept the results of the Second world war in its entirety?” While Lavrov has invoked the Yalta conference in 1945 and the Treaty of San Francisco 1952. The latter is not a signatory to Moscow, but it detects him implicitly. It is clear that Japan give up the Kuril Islands, the volcanic chain of Islands from Kamchatka to Hokkaido.
Tokyo claims the four southernmost Islands belong to the Kuril Islands. It relies on a Treaty of 1875 between Russia and Japan. In addition, Russia has occupied the Islands after Japan’s surrender in August 1945, in violation of international law. Until a few years ago in Tokyo wanted to negotiate a peace, if Moscow has given back all four Islands. At times it was felt in Tokyo, even to the Russians after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Islands of buy. Later, Tokyo reduced its claim unofficially to the formula “2 plus x”. Moscow should leave Japan, the small of Shikotan and the tiny archipelago Habomai, and in any Form Tokyo’s claim to the two larger Islands, Iturup and Kunashir to recognise, without having to immediately give back. Seemed such a compromise Moscow to be ready for a long time. Today, not more.
infographic: dispute over the South Kuril image to enlarge
The formula “2 plus x” has a historical root. In the Declaration of Moscow, with the help of Japan and the Soviet Union in 1956, relations normalized, promised the then-Soviet party chief, Nikita Khrushchev, the Japanese Shikotan and Habomai, once a peace Treaty was signed. From Kunashir and Iturup, the speech was hardly. In 1956, it was said in the Japanese Parliament explicitly that Japan could not claim the Islands to be credible.
But in 1956, the Communist wobbled Power in Poland; in the fall of the Soviet Union, Hungary invaded. The Cold war reached its first climax. Since Washington did not want to allow it, that Tokyo was reconciled with Moscow. So the US has warned Secretary of state John Foster Dulles and his colleagues from Japan, Mamoru Shigemitsu, if Tokyo waive the claim to all four Islands, could not expect the USA to Japan to give the then-occupied Okinawa. Thus, Dulles sabotaged a peace Treaty between Moscow and Tokyo. In 1972, Tokyo and returned to Okinawa. It has been claimed since then, the sovereignty over Iturup and Kunashir.
moderated
In their previous 24 Meetings have prevented Abe and Putin this is a core issue. Shinzo Abe softened his tone, he talks a lot of economic cooperation. Even the Tokyo-funded homesick activists on Hokkaido are not asking for more, the four Islands would have to be brought back, but you can summon a good-neighbourhood with Russia.
(editing Tamedia)
Created: 22.01.2019, 06:13 PM
