JAPAN TODAY



 

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia

Japan and Russia are unlikely to reach a final agreement to start all five areas of joint economic activities to be pursued on a group of disputed islands, Russian sources said Sunday.

The two countries have recently been holding intensive talks on the joint projects, which include areas such as aquaculture and waste reduction, ahead of a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin next Saturday on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka.

The economic activities are expected to benefit Russia by bringing in investment to the underdeveloped region. Japan, for its part, has seen them as a trust-building exercise that would help lay the groundwork for resolving the decades-old territorial row.

But one government source in Sakhalin in Russia's Far East, which effectively administers the disputed islands, said, "There has been no progress at all (over the past months) toward fleshing out the projects."

The sources partly attributed the failure to reach an agreement to a period of time since November last year when the two countries set aside talks on the economic activities and devoted their efforts to negotiations for a post-World War II peace treaty.

During the negotiations for a peace treaty, which the countries have yet to conclude due to the territorial dispute, Abe aimed to secure the return of the smaller two of the four islands off Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido. But he gave up seeking such a deal when Moscow did not budge.

The two countries have since reverted to talks on the joint economic activities.

Of the five fields, two of them -- waste reduction and tourism -- were seen to have the fewest hurdles regarding customs and tax procedures to be cleared.

But sources familiar with the projects said the countries remain apart even in these two areas they have placed priority on.

For example, Japan has proposed providing waste compression and volume reduction equipment for use on the four islands, but local residents are expecting the construction of a large-scale waste incineration plant.

In the area of tourism, the Russian side is calling on Japan to cooperate in infrastructure projects because the islands do not have enough accommodation facilities, according to the sources.

Other planned areas of cooperation are greenhouse farming and wind power generation.

The disputed islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan and Southern Kuriles in Russia, were seized by the Soviet Union after Japan's 1945 surrender brought an end to World War II. Japan has opposed Russia's position that it legitimately acquired the islands as a result of the war.


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