The Japanese government will continue to pursue a policy aimed at resolving the territorial issue and concluding a peace treaty with Russia despite the deterioration of relations between the states due to the situation in Ukraine, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Monday in his speech at a plenary session of the lower house of parliament.
"Japan-Russia relations are in a difficult state because of the situation in Ukraine, but our country will adhere to a policy aimed at resolving the territorial issue and concluding a peace treaty," he said.
Moscow and Tokyo have been in talks on a peace treaty based on the results of World War II since the middle of last century. Sovereignty over the southern part of the Kuril Islands is the stumbling block. After World War II the whole archipelago was taken over by the Soviet Union, but Japan still disputes sovereignty over Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of small uninhabited islands. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stressed that Russia’s sovereignty over these islands has a firm international legal basis to rely on and is indisputable.
