Japan denies taking up Russia dispute in G8
Japan denied it would raise an island row with Moscow at the upcoming Group of Eight summit after a Russian official voiced outrage and questioned Tokyo's leadership of the elite club.
By Agencies |
TOKYO: Russia and Japan have never signed a peace treaty to formally end World War II due to Tokyo's claims over four islands, which Soviet troops seized in 1945, off Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.
A Japanese official said Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda would raise the issue in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev but did not plan to discuss it as part of the G8, whose summit starts Monday in Hokkaido.
"This is a very important issue, so naturally we will discuss it during the course of the Japan-Russia bilateral meeting," a senior foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
"That said, given that this is intrinsically a bilateral issue between Russia and Japan, we don't plan to take the issue up in the framework of the G8," he said.
A senior Russian foreign ministry official said in Moscow on Wednesday that Japan was violating its role as chairman of the G8, which comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.
"Bilateral issues having nothing to do with the summit and it's a tradition of the G8 not to raise bilateral problems in this format," the official said.
Japan's G8 website says in a section about Hokkaido that the islands are "inherent territories of Japan, having been handed down from generation to generation by the Japanese people and having never been a territory of another country."
Soviet troops seized the four Kuril islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, three days after Tokyo surrendered in World War II and later expelled the Japanese residents.
Japan demands the return of all four islands. Russia's position is that US president Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed in February 1945 in Yalta to let the Soviet Union take over the islands as a condition for joining the war against Japan.
A Japanese official said Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda would raise the issue in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev but did not plan to discuss it as part of the G8, whose summit starts Monday in Hokkaido.
"This is a very important issue, so naturally we will discuss it during the course of the Japan-Russia bilateral meeting," a senior foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
"That said, given that this is intrinsically a bilateral issue between Russia and Japan, we don't plan to take the issue up in the framework of the G8," he said.
A senior Russian foreign ministry official said in Moscow on Wednesday that Japan was violating its role as chairman of the G8, which comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.
"Bilateral issues having nothing to do with the summit and it's a tradition of the G8 not to raise bilateral problems in this format," the official said.
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Japan's G8 website says in a section about Hokkaido that the islands are "inherent territories of Japan, having been handed down from generation to generation by the Japanese people and having never been a territory of another country."
Soviet troops seized the four Kuril islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, three days after Tokyo surrendered in World War II and later expelled the Japanese residents.
Japan demands the return of all four islands. Russia's position is that US president Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed in February 1945 in Yalta to let the Soviet Union take over the islands as a condition for joining the war against Japan.
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