Russia Blasts Japanese Claim to Disputed South Kuril Islands

MosNews
Mar. 31, 2006

Russia’s Foreign Ministry bristled at the Japanese authorities’ claim to disputed Pacific islands in government-approved Japanese schoolbooks, saying that they remained an “inalienable” part of Russia, The Associated Press reported.

Russia refuses to cede control of the four cold, sparsely-populated islands, which were seized by the Soviet army in the closing days of World War II. The dispute over the islands (called “the Northern Territories” in Japan and “the Kuril Islands” in Russia) has cast a shadow over bilateral ties and prevented the two nations from signing a peace treaty formally to end their wartime hostilities.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday referred to changes to schoolbooks recently introduced by Japan’s Ministry of Education which reaffirmed the Japanese claim on the islands. “We would like to emphasize that these islands are an inalienable part of the Russian Federation, in accordance with the results of World War II as recognized by international law,” the Ministry said.

“The demands for the ’return’ of the southern Kuril Islands undermine the foundations of the postwar order, and can only be viewed as a call for the revision of the outcome of World War II,” it added.