TOKYO DETERMINES ITS POSITION AT RUSSIAN-JAPANESE SUMMIT IN IRKUTSK








TOKYO,  March 14, 2001 / From RIA Novosti's Vyacheslav Bantin/ -- At the forthcoming Russian-Japanese summit, due on March 25 in Irkutsk, Tokyo intends to set forth a proposal to make the 1956 Soviet-Japanese joint declaration the foundation of further talks. Japanese premier Yoshiro Mori will propose to include this thesis in the Irkutsk declaration, which is expected to be signed on the results of the meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and the head the  Japanese government, reports the Kyodo Tsushin agency.


	According to the Japanese media, the diplomats of the two countries are making the final touches to the draft of the Irkutsk declaration.  For this, a group of experts of the Japanese foreign ministry, led by the director of the department of Europe and Oceania, Kazuhito Togo, is staying in Moscow.


	In the 1956 joint declaration, the  former USSR expressed, as a gesture of good will, preparedness to turn over to Japan, after signing a bilateral peace treaty, the islands Shikoton and Habomai - the lesser part of the South Kuriles. However, in the same year 1956, Tokyo refused to sign a peace treaty on such terms and demanded that the USSR simultaneously place under Japan's jurisdiction all the four islands (Shikotan, Habomai,  Kunashir and Iturup) of the South Kuriles.


	Now Tokyo believes that the question of the islands Shikotan and Habomai "is closed", since their transfer is specified in the joint declaration and now talks should be conducted on the transfer to Japan of only the two other islands - Kunashir and Iturup.


	Moscow considers such an approach unjustified, since Tokyo itself rejected these two islands way back in 1956. Russia believes that now, 45 years after the adoption by the sides of the joint declaration, Moscow and Tokyo need to discuss in detail how to interpret this document in modern conditions.