Japan will no longer torment the Russian Prime Minister with talk of the Southern Kuriles.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrives in Tokyo on May 11. He may see the signing of a bilateral agreement on cooperation in the nuclear energy field, which promises strategic benefits for Russia but would require it to allow international inspectors at its nuclear facilities. The Japanese do not intend to press Vladimir Putin too hard on the South Kuriles because they now consider President Dmitry Medvedev to be the main negotiator on the issue. ITAR TASS correspondent in Tokyo, VASILY GOLOVNIN has the details exclusively for Kommersant.
Vladimir Putin will arrive in Tokyo late Monday evening and will fly away on Wednesday morning, so the visit will actually last one day, May 12. At the preparatory stage the Japanese were given to understand that the Russian Prime Minister, owing to his constitutional powers, would not be inclined to discuss the South Kuriles in detail and to talk about the prospects for signing the peace treaty which has gone unsigned between the two Far Eastern neighbours since 1945. Nevertheless the Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso intends to remind his Russian counterpart that during the summit meeting on Sakhalin on February 18 Dmitry Medvedev had spoken in favour of negotiations about the territories on the basis of some unspecified "original non-standard approaches."
Sources at the Japanese Foreign Ministry say that Tokyo believes Russia must explain the concrete meaning of these words that fueled great hopes about Moscow's change of stance over the South Kuriles. Initially the Japanese expected that Dmistry Medvedev would come up with new proposals on the islands in London in early April during the G20 summit devoted to overcoming the world economic crisis. However, a separate meeting of the two leaders did not take place on that occasion for technical reasons. Now Tokyo is calling on Moscow to present its "original non-standard approaches" on the disputed territories during the G8 meeting in Italy this summer.
The Japanese Government does not yet intend to make its own proposals on the South Kuriles. True, on April 17 the Cabinet's representative on foreign policy gave a sensational interview suggesting that the islands might be divided in half in terms of area. That triggered a flurry of official denials, including one from Prime Minister Aso: he indicated that Japan still claimed sovereignty over the entire South Kuriles. Beyond that Tokyo says it is ready to approach the fate of the islands in a "flexible" way, and allow them to be administered by Russia for a comparatively long period. However, informed sources in Tokyo admit that the Japanese authorities are prepared to study the proposal to divide the South Kuriles in some way if that proposal comes from Moscow.
The recent boom in economic ties between the two countries seemed to argue that given proper conditions, economic cooperation between Russia and Japan could develop without the South Kuriles dispute being resolved. In 2008, bilateral trade hit an all-time high of close to $30 billion. The building of Toyota and Nissan assembly plants in Russia was symbolic of dramatic changes in relations; however, the world crisis cut the boom short, one that had lasted since the beginning of the century.
During the first quarter of this year, supplies of Russian goods to Japan dropped by half over last year, and Japanese exports to Russia dropped by 21.2%. Tokyo believes that internal budget problems may stymie many of Moscow's ambitious plans to develop the Far East and the Kuriles. So the Japanese intend to make the point that if an agreement is reached on the islands they would be ready to make major government-guaranteed investments in Russia, including in its infrastructure.
In any case, crisis or no crisis, there is abiding mutual interest. During Vladimir Putin's visit regional ties will be discussed at the first ever forum of the governors of the two countries in which Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and his colleagues from the Russian Far East regions will take part. There will also be a conference of business people to be attended by more than a hundred top Russian entrepreneurs, including Alexei Miller, Oleg Deripaska and Sergei Bogdanchikov. Japan will be represented by the cream of its business community, which still believes that once the crisis is over, Russia will remain attractive as one of the fastest growing markets and suppliers of the commodities that Japan needs.
Tokyo took very seriously the beginning of shipments of liquefied natural gas from Sakhalin, which already cover 7-8% of the country's needs. Japan is interested in discussing massive expansion of these purchases on a long-term basis.
Tokyo also includes, among strategic areas, an agreement on cooperation with Russia in nuclear energy, the negotiations of which have dragged on laboriously since 2007. The document paves the way for a doubling of Russian uranium supplies to Japan, which now account for 12% of its market, massive enrichment of spent Japanese nuclear fuel at Russian enterprises and the creation of joint ventures to build equipment for nuclear power plants. However, Tokyo's demand that this cooperation be put under tight IAEA control to rule out the use of Japanese materials and technologies in Russia for military purposes may be a stumbling block. These inspections should be as tough as the IAEA inspections, for example, in Iran, which raised Moscow's irritation because Russia claims special rights as a great nuclear power.
A compromise is said to have been found, but Tokyo is afraid that something may again prevent the agreement from being signed during Vladimir Putin's visit. The same is true of five less important documents prepared for the current trip, in particular on legal cooperation, easing of customs procedures and stepping up the fight against marine poaching: "as always, a lot of uncertainty will remain until the last minute," diplomats in Tokyo sigh.