3 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
China has changed its position of support for Japan on the Kuril Islands, also called the Northern Territories, in dispute between Tokyo and Moscow, to a status of neutrality, according to the Japanese state news agency Kyodo.
Former Chinese President Mao Zedong expressed his support for Japan in 1964 on the status of this archipelago, made up of a group of islands –Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai– inhabited by just a handful of Japanese citizens and which were occupied by the Soviet troops in World War II.
Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly stressed to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, last month that Beijing “will not take the position of either side” regarding the territorial dispute, according to a Chinese source familiar with the matter. to the Japanese news agency Kyodo.
The Japanese authorities accused the Russian government in April 2022 of “illegally occupying” the islands. Japan had not referred to the so-called Northern Territories in this way since 2003, as reported at the time by the NHK television network.
Relations between the parties have deteriorated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has led Tokyo to impose sanctions against Moscow. Following this, Russia declared the end of the negotiations to reach a peace treaty between the two nations, pending since World War II, and also of the dialogue for the establishment of joint economic activities in the Kuriles.
Japan has delayed signing a peace agreement with Russia for decades in hopes of regaining sovereignty over these islands. Tokyo shields itself for its demands in the Bilateral Trade and Border Treaty that it signed with Moscow on February 7, 1855, while the Kremlin relies on international treaties signed at the end of World War II.
