Putin takes hard line on Japan island row

Bloomberg

As Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe heads for talks in Moscow this week in hopes of resolving a 70-year-old dispute over four small islands, President Vladimir Putin is showing him a deal won’t be painless.
While Abe has pushed for progress in a dispute that has prevented the countries from formally ending their World War II hostilities, Russian rhetoric has turned strident ahead of what will be the 25th meeting between the two leaders on Tuesday. A top Putin aide vowed not to surrender any territory and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov offered a pointed reminder of Japan’s defeat in 1945.
“Japan is the only country in the world that cannot fully recognise the outcome of World War II,” Lavrov told reporters.
He repeated a demand that Tokyo first acknowledge Russian sovereignty over the four disputed islands before any deal.
While the divide seems wide, the tougher Russian rhetoric could be a negotiating tactic ahead of the leaders’ meeting, according to a Russian government official and a Japanese diplomat who asked not to be named, given the sensitivities of the discussions.
A Kyodo News report, citing unidentified government officials, said Abe was ready to sign a peace treaty in return for two islands. The Mainichi newspaper said he was planning to visit Russia again in the coming months to press for a deal.
“This is a problem that’s remained for more than 70 years since the war and it’s certainly not easy,” Abe told reporters before leaving for the airport. “I want to spend plenty of time talking frankly to President Putin in Moscow and make as much progress as possible in the peace treaty talks.”
The Soviet Union, which declared war on Japan in the final week of World War II fighting, seized the islands off the northeastern coast of Hokkaido, expelling all 17,000 Japanese residents and holding the land ever since.
The islands are known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia.