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| Aso not voiced proposal to share SKuriles with Russia - Japan FM |
| Tokio, 14.12.2006 |
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| TOKYO, December 14 (Itar-Tass) - The Japanese Foreign Minister said on Thursday that its head Taro Aso has not put forward a proposal on behalf of the Japanese government to share the southern part of the Kurile Islands equally with Russia and thus settle the territorial dispute between the two countries. Answering an Itar-Tass query Foreign Ministry spokesman Noriyuki Shikata stated that Aso’s words were misinterpreted.
“The minister has not put forward a proposal on behalf of the Japanese government suggesting a variant of the problem, settlement by dividing into two halves the territories,” the spokesman said. “His words were understood with a wrong implication. Minister Aso wanted to first of all stress that both sides are currently exerting efforts to find a mutually acceptable method of the issue settlement,” Shikata pointed out.
“The Japanese government,” said the Foreign Ministry spokesman, “has a serious stance in the interests of the search for a mutually acceptable method of the problem solution based on reached agreements and documents. The statement of Minister Aso was made on the basis of this old stance.”
In the course of debates in the foreign affairs commission of the lower house of parliament on Wednesday the Japanese foreign minister called for “approaching the talks with Russia proceeding from real problems.” “If we divide the Northern Territories by half,” Aso said, “then (our) half will consist of 25 percent of the Iturup Island and three other islands. It is senseless to speak about two, three, four islands without thinking of their territory size.” Japanese leading newspapers assessed this statement as a proposal “to share equally” the South Kuriles and as a departure from Tokyo’s previous stance.
Tokyo is officially seeking to return all its “Northern Territories” – i.e. South Kurile Islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a string of uninhabited islands called in Japan Habomai. Tokyo has agreed only to “flexibly” approach the timeframe and conditions of their handover. At the same time Russia proposes to search for the problem settlement ways based on the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956. Moscow in it expressed readiness as a goodwill gesture to hand over to the neighbour the smaller part of the South Kuriles, Shikotan and Habomai, but only after the signing of a peace treaty by the two sides. The document does not specify the conditions and form of the handover of these territories.
Russian diplomatic sources in Tokyo assured Itar-Tass on Thursday that they have no commentaries on the recent statement of the Japanese foreign minister.
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