Japan urges Russia to return disputed isles

Tokyo, Feb 7: Japanese leaders today demanded Russia return four rocky islands at the centre of a decades-old feud, even as Tokyo seeks closer ties with Moscow.

The dispute over the sparsely populated islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan and Southern Kuriles in Russia, has prevented Moscow and Tokyo from signing a peace treaty more than 60 years after the end of World War Two.

''The issue concerns every citizen and it's important for everyone to take an interest and unite for negotiations to make progress,'' Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a rally in a hall in central Tokyo to mark Northern Territories Day.

The islands, as close as 15 km to Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island, were seized by the Soviet Union after it declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, just before the country surrendered, forcing about 17,000 Japanese to flee.

Diplomatic ties between the two were frayed last August when a Russian patrol boat shot dead a Japanese fisherman for what officials termed illegal fishing near the islands.

Last month, however, diplomats met in Moscow to discuss ways to deepen ties, and Japanese media have said Abe may visit Russia this year to seek progress on resolving the dispute over the islands, which are near rich fishing grounds and close to Russian oil and gas production regions.

Russia has vast resources and a booming oil industry, but needs funds to develop its regions in the Far East.

Energy-hungry Japan is eager to reduce its reliance on the West Asia for oil imports.

As every year, members of right-wing Japanese groups gathered near the Russian embassy to demand the islands' return and blasted anti-Russian slogans from loudspeakers on trucks.

But public awareness of the issue has been fading, especially among young Japanese.

For several decades, Japan has tried to bolster support for the drive to regain the windswept islands by running TV and newspaper advertisements every February and August.

In a 30-second clip that cost the government 49,920 dollars to make and to run for a week this month, a young girl laments that the islands are a ''home to which we can not return, even if we wish to''.

Reuters