Abe Regards Putin Proposal as Show of Eagerness for Peace Treaty

September 14, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has taken Russian President Vladimir Putin's abrupt proposal on a post-World War II peace treaty between the two countries as an expression of the president's eagerness to conclude the long-deferred treaty, a coalition executive revealed on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters following a meeting with the prime minister earlier in the day, Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of Komeito, the coalition partner of Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, quoted the Japanese leader as saying so.

At an Eastern Economic Forum conference in the Russian Far East city of Vladivostok the previous day, Putin proposed that Tokyo and Moscow conclude a peace treaty by the end of this year without any preconditions.

According to Yamaguchi, Abe stressed that the government maintains the position of signing a peace treaty with Russia after settling the issue of sovereignty over four Russian-held islands known as the Northern Territories in Japan.

While Abe avoided discussing Putin's intention behind the proposal, a Kremlin spokesman has reportedly said its meaning is clear, suggesting that the proposal calls for concluding a peace treaty while shelving the territorial issue.

Echoing Abe's position, Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters in Hanoi on Thursday that he understands that Moscow hopes to conclude a peace treaty with Japan as soon as possible. "I confirmed that we're heading in the same direction," Kono said.

The Putin proposal, however, provoked a backlash from Japanese opposition parties.

"It's necessary to demand an explanation about why such an important proposal was suddenly put forward," Akira Nagatsuma, a senior official of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters.

Democratic Party for the People leader Yuichiro Tamaki denounced the Putin proposal as overriding the 1956 Japan-Soviet joint declaration and all other bilateral agreements clinched later.

Tamaki also criticized Abe's immediate reaction to the proposal, which Putin made in the presence of the prime minister at the Vladivostok meeting. "He smiled and didn't offer any counter to it. That was a major diplomatic blunder," Tamaki argued.

Japan claims that the four islands were seized by the former Soviet Union from the country at the end of World War II. Tokyo and Moscow have still been unable to conclude a peace treaty to formally end their wartime hostilities. Jiji Press