A decades-old territorial dispute that has prevented Japan and Russia from signing a peace treaty is showing no signs of improving following talks between the two country's foreign ministers here, but as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov leaves Japan Sunday some progress has been made in bilateral economic and security cooperation.
Relations between Russia and Japan have been clouded due to a heated territorial dispute regarding four islands off the coast of northern Japan's Hokkaido island.
The dispute over sovereignty is largely concerned with the somewhat ambiguous San Francisco Peace Treaty between the Allied Powers and Japan inked in 1951, which states that Japan must give up its claims to the islands, but recognition of sovereignty over the islands was not given to the Soviet Union either, and therein lies the conflict. (China Daily)
↧