Against the backdrop of the latest surge of political activity around the topic of negotiations with Japan on a peace treaty, former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who had fallen into political oblivion, unexpectedly made himself known, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The former mayor of Moscow revealed the details of negotiations on the status of the Kuril Islands, which in the early 2000s, with his participation, Moscow and Tokyo were conducted on the basis of the Soviet-Japanese declaration of 1956. According to him, initially the islands of Habomai and Shikotan were supposed to go to Japan.
He said this in an interview with the publication EADaily .
Luzhkov was one of the leaders of the Russian-Japanese “Council of Wise Men,” which was organized in 2004 by Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The main task of the Council was to discuss the problem of the Kuril Islands.
The former Moscow mayor recalled that at one time the leaders of the Soviet Union and Japan agreed to sign a peace agreement if Moscow agreed to hand over two small islands. We are talking about the Soviet-Japanese declaration of 1956, according to which Habomai and Shikotan were to go to the Land of the Rising Sun. “This is where the parties wanted to end the epic with a peace treaty,” said the ex-mayor, noting that until recently this position was the basic one.
Luzhkov believes that Russia should adhere to these same principles in further negotiations. “Iturup and Kunashir remain with Russia, and Habomai and Shikotan remain with Japan. This is the basis on which the Japanese and ours must move if we confirm the agreements at the interstate level reached in those days,” Luzhkov asserts.
In his opinion, joint economic activities should be carried out in the Kuril Islands. “There's a lot to do there. The islands have good fishing prospects. There are mineral deposits. In particular, sulfur and rhenium,” Luzhkov noted.
However, the day before, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that without Japan recognizing Russia’s sovereignty over the Kuril Islands, it is difficult to count on any progress in the dialogue on the peace treaty. In Japanese legislation, these islands are designated as “northern territory,” which is unacceptable for Moscow, the diplomat emphasized.