Fumio KishidaMOSCOW, March 22 Moscow's decision to withdraw from dialogue with Tokyo on a peace treaty is «unacceptably harsh,» said Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. /03/66ad66b8c87e6de6f37ca44a13f806ed.jpg» />The Prime Minister of Japan spoke about the difficulties due to Russia's counter-sanctionsKishida said that «the position of the Japanese government regarding the resolution of the territorial issue and the conclusion of the peace treaty after this did not change.» «At the same time, as I said earlier, in the light of the events in Ukraine, dialogue with the Russian Federation is now impossible,» he added. Response to sanctionsThe Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Moscow, as a response to Japan's unfriendly steps, refuses to negotiate a peace treaty with Tokyo, stops visa-free trips of the Japanese to the southern Kuril Islands, and withdraws from the dialogue on the establishment of joint economic activities in the southern Kuriles. As emphasized in the Foreign Ministry, all responsibility for the damage to Russian-Japanese cooperation lies with official Tokyo. agreements, as well as the interests of their citizens en to please Washington. «I wonder what kind of reaction was expected in Tokyo? In fact, Japan, for the sake of Washington, sacrificed a long-term negotiation process with Russia on concluding a peace treaty, as well as the interests of its own citizens, who lost the opportunity to visit the southern Kuriles without visas,» the parliamentarian wrote in his Telegram channel.
The Japanese called Russia's response to sanctions a «black mark»Peace treaty with JapanRelations between Russia and Japan have been overshadowed by the absence of a peace treaty for many years. In 1956, the USSR and Japan signed a Joint Declaration in which Moscow agreed to consider the possibility of transferring Habomai and Shikotan to Japan after the conclusion of a peace treaty, and the fate of Kunashir and Iturup was not affected. The USSR hoped that the Joint Declaration would put an end to the dispute, while Japan considered the document only part of the solution to the problem, without abandoning claims to all the islands. Subsequent negotiations led to nothing, the peace treaty at the end of World War II was never signed. There is a point of view that serious opposition arose from the United States, which threatened that if Japan agreed to the transfer of only two of the four islands to it, this would affect the process of returning Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty (The Agreement on the Return of Okinawa to Japan entered into force in 1972) . Moscow's position is that the islands became part of the USSR following World War II, and Russia's sovereignty over them is beyond doubt.Special operation in UkraineRussia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. .jpg» />Japan protested to Russia after being included in the list of unfriendly countries
