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Japan, Russia: A Kuril Island Agreement Gets a Little Smaller on the Horizon

Feb 18, 2019 | 20:31 GMT

(Stratfor)

Russia appears to be pouring cold water on Japan's hopes to strike a World War II-era peace deal and resolve their longstanding dispute over the Kuril Islands. On Feb. 17 following a sideline meeting at the Munich Security Conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he had told his Japanese counterpart that Moscow has no fixed timeline for reaching such agreements. Lavrov added that Russia maintains the position that it legitimately annexed the southern Kurils, known in Japan as the Northern Territories, at the end of World War II and called for Japan to acknowledge this. (Japan has said the annexation was illegal.) But though his statements suggest it may not produce progress on the Kurils, Lavrov and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono resolved to hold another meeting in Japan that will be scheduled in the near future....

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