Japan Press Weekly

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2015 February 4 - 10 [POLITICS]

JCP Kami attends rally for return of ‘Northern Territories’

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Kami Tomoko on February 7 attended a government-sponsored rally calling for the return of the so-called “Northern Territories” which were annexed by the former Soviet Union after World War II.

Based on the Yalta Agreement, secretly concluded in February 1945 between the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States, the Soviet Union occupied Japan’s Chishima (Kurile) Islands shortly after the end of WWII and later annexed them.

At the assembly, an ex-islander said, “The average age of former residents of those islands will soon reach 80. We are all eager to go back to our islands while we are still living.”

The JCP sent a solidarity message to the gathering. It points out that former Soviet leader Stalin took over the islands in violation of the international principle of “non-expansion of territory”, and that the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty approved the unfair situation.

The message goes on to stress, “Regardless of that treaty renouncing Japan’s sovereignty over the group of islands, the Japanese government should negotiate the restoration of all the islands of Chishima with the Russian counterpart in accordance with historical facts and international law.”


Past related article:
> Chishima Islands