Shii: Russian president’s visit to Chishima goes against fair solution to territorial issue

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Shii: Russian president’s visit to Chishima goes against fair solution to territorial issue

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo at a news conference held on November 1 in the Diet building released a statement about the visit to Kunashiri Island of the “Northern Territories” by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

He stated, “I make a strong protest against the Russian intention, shown by its leader’s visit to the Kunashiri Island, to unjustifiably continue occupying the Chishima Islands, the Habomai Islands, and Shikotan Island, which the country had illegally seized (from Japan) at the end of WWII.”

Shii explained that the 1855 Japan-Russia Trade and Friendship Treaty (Treaty of Commerce, Navigation and Delimitation or Shimoda Treaty) and the 1875 Karafuto-Chishima Exchange Treaty (Sakhalin/Kuril Exchange Treaty or Saint Petersburg Treaty) peacefully determined the border between the two countries and that the Chishimas from Shumshu in the north to Kunashiri and Etorofu in the south were entirely incorporated into Japanese territory.

However, at the end of WWII, the former Soviet Union trampled on the basic principle of “territorial non-expansion” and occupied Habomai and Shikotan, which were part of Hokkaido, and the North-South Chishimas. That had caused the problem, Shii pointed out.

In order to address the injustice of the postwar settlement, he emphasized, “By boldly conducting (bilateral) negotiations to seek the return of the Chishimas, the way for a solution to this problem will open.”

Asked by reporters about the DPJ government’s response to this problem, Shii said, “Whether it keeps perpetuating the situation as it is by responding with the same argument that ‘(Russia) should return the four islands because they are not part of the Chishimas’ as the LDP government did or takes a decisive posture by going back to the basis of territorial non-expansion will be sharply called into question.”

- Akahata, November 2, 2010