Moscow is ready to resume talks with Tokyo over a peace agreement but has no intention of holding a dialogue over the Kurils subject, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said.
“We are not holding any dialogue with Tokyo over “the Kurils problem”. This issue was resolved 70 years ago: the southern Kurils became part of our country legitimately, as a result of the Second World War. Russia’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over them is beyond doubt,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov said in an interview with Interfax.
He was commenting on the remarks made by Japanese Prime Minister Sinzo Abe about the importance of resolving the issue of the “northern territories” and signing a peace agreement after Tokyo expressed its discontent with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s trip to the Iturup Island.
At the same time he said: “We are ready for a constructive continuation of the talks over a peace agreement, provided there is an understanding, of course, that efforts to find a mutually acceptable solution to this problem must be made by both sides against the backdrop of a broad gradual advancement of the Russian-Japanese cooperation across all areas.”
Under the agreements reached by the two countries’ leaders in April 2013, relevant consultations at the level of deputy foreign ministers resumed in Tokyo in January 2014, Morgulov said. No more meetings have been held since.
“The pause has formed on the initiative of the Japanese side which, having joined the West’s anti-Russian sanctions policy over the Ukrainian crisis, started scaling down many of our dialogue formats,” he said.
