 |
Russia Says No Deal With Japan on Kuril Islands at Irkutsk Summit
Moscow said Monday that Russia and Japan made no deal on the sovereignty of the disputed Kuril Islands during the recent summit of President Vladimir Putin and former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in the Far East city of Irkutsk.
"No agreements were concluded to hold consultations on the terms of transfer of the Shikotan and Habomai islands included in the Kuril islands to Japan" at the summit, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The statement was a response to some Japanese mass media reports of Mori's remarks about "an alleged agreement reached in Irkutsk to hold consultations on the terms of transfer of the Minor Kuril ridge to Japan, separately from talks on the fate of the Kunashir and Iturup islands," said the ministry.
The reality is that the two sides differently interpret a provision of the Joint Declaration of 1956, which provides for the former USSR's consent to transfer the Shikotan and Habomai to Japan after reaching a peace treaty, according to the statement.
"To reach a uniform understanding of this provision, experts from the two states need to carry out additional work," the ministry noted, adding that "corresponding consultations will be conducted in the near future."
A mutually acceptable solution to the territorial dispute should be based on the reciprocal will to "minimize disagreements, meet each other halfway, and abandon lopsided and extreme approaches," it stressed.
Russia will firmly defend the whole range of its national interests, including its "sovereignty and territorial integrity," it said.
"Dialogue on these delicate and sensitive problems can be truly fruitful if held in a calm and constructive mode and in the atmosphere of an extensive and progressive development of bilateral relations in general," the statement reads.
The joint statement signed by Putin and Mori in Irkutsk concerning further talks on a peace treaty emphasizes that the two sides agreed to continue talks on the problem of a peace treaty on the basis of documents already concluded, including the 1956 Soviet-Japan Joint Declaration, it says.
In This Section
|