IN TOKYO CONSULTATIONS OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE DEPARTMENTS OF
RUSSIA AND JAPAN BEGAN








TOKYO, 5 March.  / today the consultations of deputy ministers of
foreign affairs of Russia and Japan began RIA "Nowosti"
rIA-"Nowosti"-Korrespondent Wjatscheslaw Bantin /. in Tokyo in the
context of the preparation on 25 March of the Russian-Japanese summit
which is approaching in Irkutsk.

On the negotiations the question will take the central workstation
over contents of a common assertion, whose acceptance the president of
Russia Vladimir Putin and the prime minister of Japan Yoshiro Mori
plan according to the results of the Irkutsker of meeting.

The Japanese page represents on the negotiations the deputy minister
of foreign affairs of Japan Riodzo Kato.  Its official contact is a
deputy of the minister of foreign affairs of Russia Alexander
Losjukow.

According to specification of informed sources the main point of the
program of the consultations is the question over the Herangehen to
the Soviet-Japanese common declaration from the year 1956.  In this
document Moscow explained itself as character of the good will ready
to transfer after the signing of the bilateral peace treaty the
islands Shikotan and Habomai - the smaller part of the Suedkurilen -
Tokyo their transfer Japan in all postwar years obtained.  But later
to sign in the same year 1956, Tokyo had refused, the peace treaty on
such conditions and the simultaneous transfer of all four islands of
the Suedkurilen at Japan had required.

Today Tokyo means the fact that the question of the islands is "
closed " Shikotan and Habomai, because around their transfer it goes
in the common declaration, and today is to be spoken about the
transfer only the two other islands of the Suedkurilen - Kunashir and
Iturup - at Japan.

In Moscow one judges such Herangehen for illegitimate, because Tokyo
did even without two islands.  In Russia is one the view that Moscow
and Tokyo must treat today, 45 years in detail according to the
acceptance of the common declaration by the pages, the question over
it how this document under today's conditions is to be laid out.