Russia raps US-Japan alliance as threat to peace treaty talks

Russia has warned against Japan’s security alliance with the United States, denouncing the move as a threat and an impediment to improving bilateral ties between Tokyo and Moscow.

Russia’s diplomatic sources said on Saturday that Moscow had expressed concern about the fate of talks with Tokyo on a peace treaty that would resolve a decades-old territorial dispute.

The talks concern four Pacific islands close to Japan’s northern coast, known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.

The disputed islands, which were inhabited by the Japanese, were captured by the Soviet Union in 1945. Japan continues to lay claims to the islands.

The sources said Russia had been increasingly looking at the US-Japan alliance as a major negative factor for Japan-Russia ties, calling on Tokyo not to side with the United States in imposing economic sanctions on Russian companies and officials.

Last November, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to accelerate peace treaty talks based on a 1956 joint declaration aimed at ending their long-running territorial dispute.

But the talks have made little progress as deep divisions remain over the territorial dispute, with Russia stressing that Japan must recognize the acquisition by Moscow of the four islands as the outcome of World War II.

Russia has on several occasions expressed alarm that the Tokyo-Washington’s security alliance may lead to the deployment of the US military in the territories if they are to be handed to Japan.

SS