Russia denies it reached a deal with Japan on the return of Kuril islands
The press secretary for the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov stated that a deal between Russia and Japan about the return of the Kuril Islands is not possible, and anything said to the contrary is speculation, Interfax news agency reports.
“During the last few days, we have seen numerous arguments, political speculation that there is already some deal on the transfer of the islands and so on. It is not so,” he said.
According to him, the Russian leader and the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe gave instructions to their foreign ministries to more actively negotiate a peace treaty that is based on the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956.
Peskov admits that the sides will need to come to a compromise. However, this will not affect anyone’s national interests. At the same time, the speaker notes that Russia cannot ignore the fact that Japan is in solidarity with the United States on the issue of imposing anti-Russian sanctions.
“This is an important topic. Russia is a country that has learned, that has a bitter experience in terms of NATO, for example, let us remember Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, recall all the contact with Germany, the US, and let’s remember the creeping expansion of NATO, including NATO’s military infrastructure near our borders, which, by the way, continues to this day,” he said.
However, despite the complexity of the problem, the countries will nevertheless resolve it, said Peskov.
“Such complex issues are still solvable, and this has been shown, for example, by the experience of negotiations on territorial issues with China,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
Earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised to solve a 60-year territorial dispute around the islands, which Russia calls Southern Kurils, and Japan- Northern territories.