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Kuril Islands dispute

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44°6′N 146°42′E / 44.100°N 146.700°E / 44.100; 146.700

The Kuril Islands with the disputed islands

The Kuril Island dispute (Template:Lang-ru Problema prinadlezhnosti Kurilskikh ostrovov, Template:Lang-ja Hoppō Ryōdo Mondai) is a dispute between Japan and Russia over sovereignty over the southernmost Kuril Islands. The disputed islands, which were occupied by Soviet forces during the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation at the end of World War II, are under Russian administration as part of the Sakhalin Oblast (Сахали́нская о́бласть, Sakhalinskaya oblast), but are claimed by Japan, which refers to them as the Northern Territories (北方領土, Hoppō Ryōdo) or Southern Chishima (南千島, Minami Chishima). The San Francisco Peace Treaty between the Allied Powers and Japan from 1951 states, that Japan must give up all claims to the islands. The disputed islands are:

Background

Iturup residents (then called Etorofu) at a riverside picnic in 1933

The first Russo-Japanese agreement to deal with the status of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands is the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda which first established official relations between Russia and Japan. Article 2 of the Treaty of Shimoda, which provided for an agreement on borders, states "Henceforth the boundary between the two nations shall lie between the islands of Etorofu and Uruppu. The whole of Etorofu shall belong to Japan; and the Kurile Islands, lying to the north of and including Uruppu, shall belong to Russia." The islands of Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, that all lie to the south of Etorofu, are not explicitly mentioned in the treaty and were understood at the time to be a non-disputed part of Japan. The treaty also specified that the island of Sakhalin/Karafuto was not to be partitioned but was to remain under a joint Russo-Japanese condominium.

In a subsequent 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg Russia and Japan agreed that Japan would give up all rights to Sakhalin in exchange for Russia giving up all rights to the Kuril Islands in favor of Japan.

The Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905 was a military disaster for Russia. The 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth, concluded at the end of this war, gave the southern half of the Sakhalin Island to Japan.

Although Japan occupied parts of Russia's Far East during the Russian Civil War following the October Revolution, Japan did not formally annex any of these territories and they were vacated by Japan by the mid-1920s.

There was practically no hostile activity between the USSR and Japan after the Battle of Khalkin Gol ended the Japanese-Soviet Border Wars in 1939 and before the USSR declared war on Japan (Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation) on August 8, 1945. After capturing the islands between August 18 and September 3, 1945, the Soviet Union expelled the Japanese inhabitants two years later.

The modern dispute

World War II agreements

The modern Kuril Islands dispute arose in the aftermath of World War II and results from the ambiguities in and disagreements about the meaning of the Yalta agreement (February 1945), the Potsdam Declaration (July 1945) and the Treaty of San Francisco (September 1951). The Yalta Agreement, signed by the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, stated:

The leaders of the three great powers – the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain – have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that: 2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz.: (a) The southern part of Sakhalin as well as the islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union; 3. The Kurile Islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.

Japan, as well as the United States, later claimed that the Yalta agreement did not apply to the Northern Territories since they were technically not a part of the Kuril Islands. The Soviet Union and, subsequently, Russia rejected this position. It should be noted that the restoration of the 1904 borders is in paragraph 2, containing sub-paragraphs (a), (b) etc., while the status of the Kurils is covered in a separate 3rd paragraph.

Compared to the Yalta agreement, the text of the Potsdam Declaration contained a more ambiguous passage regarding the Japanese territories: "8. The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine". The islands comprising the Northern Territories are not explicitly included in this list, but the U.S. subsequently maintained, particularly during the preparation of the Treaty of San Francisco, that the phrase "and such minor islands as we determine" could be used to justify transferring the Northern Territories to Japan. The Cairo Declaration of 1943 did not explicitly mention the Kuril Islands but stated: "Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed".

Japan later claimed that the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration, which cites it, did not apply to the Northern Territories on the grounds that they had never belonged to Russia even before the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese war and had never been claimed by Russia since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and Japan in 1855, and thus they were not acquired by Japan "by violence and greed".

San Francisco Treaty

A substantial dispute regarding the status of the Kuril Islands arose between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the preparation of the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951. The Treaty was supposed to be a permanent peace treaty between Japan and the Allied Powers of World War II. By that time the Cold War had already taken hold and the position of the U.S. in relation to the Yalta and Potsdam agreements had changed considerably. The U.S. had come to maintain that the Potsdam Declaration should take precedence and that strict adherence to the Yalta agreement was not necessary since, in the view of the U.S., the Soviet Union itself violated several provisions of the Yalta agreement in relation to the rights of other countries. The Soviet Union vehemently disagreed and demanded that the U.S. adhere to its promises made to the Soviet Union in Yalta as a condition of the Soviet Union's entry into the war with Japan. A particular point of disagreement at the time was the fact that the draft text of the treaty, while stating that Japan will renounce all rights to Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril islands, did not state explicitly that Japan would recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over these territories.

The Treaty of San Francisco was officially signed by 49 nations, including Japan and the United States, on September 8, 1951. Article (2c) states: "Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 5 September 1905."

The Soviet Union refused to sign the Treaty of San Francisco and publicly stated that the Kuril Islands issue was one of the reasons for its opposition to the Treaty.

The 1956 Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration and a dispute over the composition of the Kuril islands

Japan signed and ratified the San Francisco treaty. However, both the Japanese government and most of the Japanese media currently claim that already at the time of the 1951 San Francisco peace conference, Japan held that the islands of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai rocks were technically not a part of the Kuril Islands and thus were not covered by the provisions of Article (2c) of the treaty. The timing of this claim is disputed by Russia and by some western historians. In a 2005 article in The Japan Times, Gregory Clark writes that official Japanese statements, maps and other documents from 1951 and the statements by the head of the U.S. delegation to the San Francisco conference, John Foster Dulles, make it clear that at the time the San Francisco Treaty was concluded in October 1951, both Japan and the United States considered the islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu to be a part of the Kuril Islands and to be covered by Article (2c) of the Treaty. Based on a 1966 book by a former Japanese diplomat and a member of the 1956 Japanese delegation for the Moscow peace talks, Clark traces the first Japanese claim that Etorofu and Kunashiri islands are not a part of the Kurils to the 1956 negotiations on the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956. The Soviet Union rejected the view at that time, and it and, subsequently, Russia have maintained the same position since then.

During the 1956 peace talks between Japan and the Soviet Union, the Soviet side proposed to settle the dispute by returning Shikotan and Habomai to Japan, but an American intervention warning Japan that a withdrawal of the Japanese claim on the other islands would mean the United States would keep Okinawa caused Japan to refuse these terms. Nevertheless, on October 19, 1956 in Moscow, the USSR and Japan signed the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration. The Declaration ended the state of war between the Soviet Union and Japan, which technically had still existed between the two countries since August 1945. The Joint Declaration did not settle the Kuril Islands dispute, the resolution of which was postponed until the conclusion of a permanent peace treaty between USSR and Japan. However, Article 9 of the Joint Declaration stated: "The U.S.S.R. and Japan have agreed to continue, after the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between them, negotiations for the conclusion of a peace treaty. Hereby, the U.S.S.R., in response to the desires of Japan and taking into consideration the interest of the Japanese state, agrees to hand over to Japan the Habomai and the Shikotan Islands, provided that the actual changing over to Japan of these islands will be carried out after the conclusion of a peace treaty."

The question of whether Etorofu and Kunashiri islands are a part of the Kurils, and thus whether they are covered by Article (2c) of the Treaty of San Francisco, remains one of the main outstanding issues in the Kuril Islands dispute.

Japan's view

Japan's current view of the dispute is given in the official pamphlet of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

  • The Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration do not apply to the Northern Territories because the Northern Territories never belonged to Russia even before 1904-1905.
  • Russia has not claimed the disputed islands since diplomatic relations with Japan began in 1855; thus they were not acquired by Japan "by violence and greed".
  • The Yalta Agreement "did not determine the final settlement of the territorial problem, as it was no more than a statement by the then leaders of the Allied Powers as to principles of the postwar settlement. (Territorial issues should be settled by a peace treaty.) Furthermore, Japan is not bound by this document, to which it did not agree."
  • Russia's invasion to Japan was a violation of Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact and the occupations of the islands are therefore a violation of international laws. The Soviet Union repudiated the pact on April 5, 1945, but the pact remained in effect until April 13, 1946.
  • Although by the terms of Article (2c) of the 1951 San Francisco treaty Japan renounced all rights to the Kuril Islands, the treaty does not apply to the islands of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai rocks since they are not included in the Kuril Islands. Also, the Soviet Union did not sign the San Francisco treaty.

Russia's view

Russia maintains that all of the Kuril Islands, including the disputed islands of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai rocks, became a part of Russia as a result of World War II, that Russia's rights to the islands are guaranteed by the international agreements including the Yalta Agreement and the Treaty of San Francisco, and that Russia has unquestionable sovereignty over these islands.

Concessions to Japan

Russia has given several concessions to Japan in the dispute. For example, Russia has introduced visa-free trips for Japanese citizens to the Kuril Islands. Japan's fishermen are also allowed to catch sea bioresources in Russia's exclusive economic zone. However, Japan has refused to make reciprocal steps.

Recent Developments

The positions of the two sides have not substantially changed since the 1956 Joint Declaration, and a permanent peace treaty between Japan and Russia still has not been concluded.

On July 7, 2005, the European Parliament issued an official statement recommending the return of the territories in dispute, which Russia immediately protested.

As late as 2006, Russia's Putin administration offered Japan the return of Shikotan and the Habomais (about 6% of the disputed area) if Japan would renounce its claims to the other two islands, referring to the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 which promised Shikotan and the Habomais would be ceded to Japan once a peace treaty was signed.

Japan has offered substantial financial aid to the Kuril Islands if they are handed over. However, by 2007, residents of the islands were starting to benefit from economic growth and improved living standards, arising in particular from expansion in the fish processing industry. As a result, it is thought that islanders are less likely to be won over by Japanese offers of financial support.

On February 6, 2008, Japan Today, an English-language news site in Japan, reported that the Russian president had suggested to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to finally settle all territorial disputes over the Kuril Islands and had sent him a letter inviting him to come to Russia for discussions.

The dispute over the Kuril Islands was further exacerbated on July 16, 2008, when the Japanese government published new school textbook guidelines directing teachers to say that Japan has sovereignty over the Kuril Islands. The Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs announced on July 18, " contribute neither to the development of positive cooperation between the two countries, nor to the settlement of the dispute" and reaffirmed its sovereignty over the islands.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met in Sakhalin on February 18 2009 to discuss the Kuril Islands issue. Aso said after the meeting that they had agreed to speed up efforts to resolve the dispute so that it would not be left to future generations to find a solution.

Public attitudes towards the Kuril Islands dispute

In Russia most of the population, as well as the mass media, strongly oppose any territorial concessions to Japan. A common view is that Russia won the Kuril Islands during World War II and is entitled to keep them regardless of the prior history of the disputed territories. Many believe that taking these islands away from Japan was a just reward for Russia's sacrifices during World War II and for Russia's agreement to enter the war against Japan at the request of its allies.

In Japan, there are various private groups cooperating with local and national government to encourage the Japanese people to push for the return of the islands. One man whose family was evicted from the islands, Kenjiro Suzuki, heads the Tokachi branch of the League of Chishima Habomai Islands Residents (Chishima is the Japanese name for the Kuril Islands). In 2008, the main organization had a budget of approximately 187 million yen ($1.7 million US$).

See also

References

  1. "The history of the Kuril Islands Dispute". RIA Novosti. 2009-05-01. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
  2. K. Takahara, Nemuro raid survivor longs for homeland. Japan Times, September 22, 2007. Accessed August 3, 2008
  3. Text of Dulles Reply to the Soviet Charges Against Japanese Peace Treaty; THE PRESIDENT ARRIVING TO OPEN PEACE CONFERENCE, New York Times, September 4, 1951; from page 3: "Charge: Likewise, the Treaty States that southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands are to be detached from Japan but does not state, as previously promised by the United States, that these territories should be handed over to the Soviet Union. Reply: As regards South Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, the treaty carries out the provisions of the Potsdam surrender terms, the only agreement by which Japan and the Allied powers as a whole are bound. So long as other governments have rights under the Yalta Agreement which the Soviet Union has not fulfilled, there is at least question as to whether the Soviet Union can, "with clean hands", demand the fulfillment of the parts of that agreement it likes".
  4. Text of Gromyko's Statement on the Peace Treaty.New York Times, September 9, 1951; From page 26: "The Soviet delegation has already drawn the attention of the conference to the inadmissibility of the situation under which the draft peace treaty with Japan fails to state that Japan should recognize the sovereignty of the Soviet Union over the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. The draft is in flagrant contradiction with the obligations assumed by the United States and Great Britain with regard to these territories under the Yalta Agreement."
  5. The convoluted case of the coveted Kurils. By Kosuke Takahashi. Asia Times. November 25, 2004. "Japan and the Allied Powers, including the US and the UK, signed the peace treaty in San Francisco in 1951, when the Soviet Union participated but did not sign the treaty. At the conference, Japan renounced the "Kuril Islands", excluding Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, or Habomai islands, which Japan claimed had always been Japanese territories and wished to claim them after the war."
  6. ^ Kimie Hara, 50 Years from San Francisco: Re-Examining the Peace Treaty and Japan's Territorial Problems. Pacific Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 361-382. Available online at J-STOR.
  7. Northern Territories dispute highlights flawed diplomacy. By Gregory Clark. Japan Times, March 24, 2005.
  8. Northern Territories dispute highlights flawed diplomacy. By Gregory Clark. Japan Times, March 24, 2005. "Japanese materials at the time -- Foreign Ministry maps, statements by former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida at San Francisco and in his later memoirs, and newspaper reports all make it clear that Etorofu and Kunashiri were most definitely included. The chief U.S. negotiator for the San Francisco treaty, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, agreed. Asked at San Francisco to define the territory of the Kurils, he said only that the Habomais might be excluded (at the time there were suggestions that Shikotan might be part of the Kurils). More was to follow. Questioned in the Diet on October 19, 1951, over whether the word "Kurils" as used in the treaty included Etorofu and Kunashiri, the head of the Foreign Ministry Treaties Bureau, Kumao Nishimura, said unambiguously that both the northern Chishima and southern Chishima (Etorofu and Kunashiri) were included."
  9. Texts of Soviet-Japanese Statements; Peace Declaration Trade Protocol, page 2, New York Times, October 20, 1956; available for fee from the New York Times electronic archive.
  10. "Texts of Soviet-Japanese Statements; Peace Declaration Trade Protocol." New York Times, page 2, October 20, 1956. Subtitle: "Moscow, October 19. (UP) - Following are the texts of a Soviet-Japanese peace declaration and of a trade protocol between the two countries, signed here today, in unofficial translation from the Russian".
  11. ^ Japan's Northern Territories (Pamphlet). Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.
  12. Russia stands firm in territorial dispute with Japan. RIA Novosti. July 2, 2008.
  13. "Japan's statements on Kurils have no legal force - envoy". ITAR-TASS. 2009-07-08. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
  14. European Parliament resolution on relations between the EU, China and Taiwan and security in the Far East #15
  15. Soviet-Japanese joint declaration of 1956 — full text in Russian at Wiki
  16. declaration of 1956, official Japan site — full text in Russian
  17. declaration of 1956, Japan embassy — full text in Russian
  18. Islands disputed with Japan feel Russia's boom
  19. Japan expects the Kuril Islands return :: In Depth :: Russia International :: Russia-InfoCentre
  20. Russia hopes to solve territorial dispute with Japan by strengthening trust, Xinhua News Agency, Accessed 2008-07-19
  21. Japanese schoolbooks to claim Russia's Southern Kuril Islands, RussiaToday, Accessed 2008-07-19
  22. Japan, Russia discuss islands row
  23. ^ Russians Want to Keep the Kuril Islands. By E. Vovk. The Public Opinion Foundation Database. November 25, 2004
  24. 抑留55年目の回顧〜「シベリア抑留関係展示会」【３】
  25. Tokachi branch of the League of Chijima Habomai Islands Residents: 2008 16th Regular Meeting Proposals (paper document in Japanese)「支部長　鈴木　健二郎」
  26. http://www.koueki.jp/disclosure/ta/chishima-habomai/0.pdf

Further reading

  • Stephan, John J. The Kuril Islands Russo-Japanese Frontier in the Pacific. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974. ISBN 0198215630
  • Kimie Hara, 50 Years from San Francisco: Re-Examining the Peace Treaty and Japan's Territorial Problems. Pacific Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 361-382. Available online at J-STOR. </ref>

External links

Territorial disputes in East, South, and Southeast Asia
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