Japan’s PM says peace treaty with Russia will be signed based on 1956 agreements

Moscow and Tokyo will solve their territorial dispute and sign a peace treaty based on the 1956 Joint Declaration, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday delivering his program speech at the opening of the parliament session.

"As for Russia, our nations will deepen mutual trust and friendship, solve their territorial problem and sign a peace treaty," Abe said. "Together with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin we share the determination to put an end to this issue, which has been in place for more than 70 years after the war, without leaving it for the future generations."

The talks on that would be bolstered based on the 1956 Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration, which stipulated handing over to Tokyo some islands of the southern part of the Kuril Islands after signing a peace treaty, he stressed.

The Russian and Japanese leaders confirmed this stance at their January 22 meeting in the Kremlin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to intensify talks on a peace treaty at a meeting in Singapore last November. Later in December, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, the leaders announced establishing a new peace treaty negotiations format. The two countries’ top diplomats were tasked to oversee its work.

For decades, Moscow and Tokyo have been negotiating a peace treaty after World War II. The main stumbling block is the status of the southern part of the Kuril Islands. After World War II, the whole archipelago became part of the Soviet Union. However, Tokyo disputes Russian claims over Iturup, Kunashir and Shikotan Islands as well as a number of smaller uninhabited islands called the Habomai Islands in Japan. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stated that the Russian sovereignty over those islands is fixed in international legal documents and cannot be questioned.