The possible visit of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to the Kuril Islands will not be a deciding factor in planning the visits of the leaders of the two countries to Russia and Japan. This was stated by the third secretary of the Third Department of Asian Affairs of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denis Karenin, at a press conference at Tass dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the start of the operation to free the Kuril Islands from Japanese troops during World War II. Since the end of the Second World War there has been a territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands between Russia and Japan. Japan claims the islands of Iturup, Kunashir and Shikotan were annexed by the Soviet Union in a form that had no legal basis. In response, Russia said it is pointless to challenge the sovereignty over the Kuril Islands, since the islands were connected absolutely legally.
Denis Karenin believes that Russian-Japanese relations have great potential, which is not yet fully revealed: "The beginning of the present stage of Russian-Japanese relationship was on January 27th 1992, when Japan recognized Russia as the successor to the Soviet Union. If we're talking about Russian-Japanese relations at the present stage, in the past few years, they can be divided into two parts. A cornerstone, again, was in April 2013, when there was a visit by the Prime Minister of Japan to Moscow, the first in 10 years. This was a very important event for Russian-Japanese relations at the present stage and even historically, it was very carefully prepared, and of course, as a result, so many agreements were achieved, it gave a very strong impetus to the development of Russian-Japanese relations. Immediately we saw a growth of economic indicators and trade."
Adopted at the end of the visit, a joint statement by the leaders of Russia and Japan, involves an activation of the political dialogue and trade and economic dialogue, and a huge number of various economic projects. "After that we have seen an almost unprecedented increase in activity on the political track. That is, from April 2013 to February 2014 there were four meetings held between the leaders of Russia and Japan, which, in general, is a fantastic performance for the previous years. V.V. Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met at the G8 summit in Lough Erne, and at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg and at the APEC summit in Bali. Naturally, the most recent meeting in this period was a meeting in Sochi in 2014, during events marking the Olympics, "diplomat recalled.
In mid-2014 relations between the two countries soured after Japan in the framework, as it was formulated, of a solidarity with the ‘Big 7’ took a number of steps which were not quite friendly towards Russia. "However, despite all this, we preserved cooperation, cooperation between agencies is maintained, even though, of course, political dialogue has slowed somewhat, but it is still growing. Then we have, in general, a lot of things happening in economic terms as before. That is, the economic agreements that were reached between the leaders in 2013 continue to bear fruit, that is, Japanese companies are actively involved in joint projects with Russian companies, there is the fuel and energy complex and various projects in the field of high technologies. In addition, we operate various joint commissions to improve the investment climate for the development of the urban environment. There are a variety of humanitarian programs. We plan to work on the basis of these 2013 agreements, and despite the difficulties in general, to develop Russian-Japanese relations, still we are trying to multiply them, while conserving a positive atmosphere, it is very necessary for their further development. Then, of course, efforts are needed on both sides., "Karenin believes.
