Soviet-Japanese diplomatic relations were restored 57 years ago.
In the Russian media, one can often come across an assertion that Moscow and Tokyo are allegedly still in a state of war. The logic of the authors of such statements is simple and straightforward. Since a peace treaty between the two countries has not been signed, they "reason", the state of war continues.
Those who undertake to write about this are not aware of the simple question of how diplomatic relations can exist between the two countries at the level of embassies while maintaining a "state of war". Note that Japanese propagandists interested in continuing endless "negotiations" on the so-called "territorial issue" are also in no hurry to dissuade both their own and the Russian population, pretending to be lamenting about the "unnatural" situation with the absence of a peace treaty for half a century. And this despite the fact that these days are already celebrating the 55th anniversary of the signing in Moscow of the Joint Declaration of the USSR and Japan of October 19, 1956, the first article of which declares: “The state of war between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan ceases from the day of by virtue of this Declaration, and between them peace and good-neighborly friendly relations are restored."
The next anniversary of the conclusion of this agreement gives a reason to return to the events of more than half a century ago, to remind the reader under what circumstances and through whose fault the Soviet-Japanese, and now the Russian-Japanese peace treaty has not yet been signed.
Separate San Francisco Peace Treaty
After the end of World War II, the creators of American foreign policy set the task of removing Moscow from the process of post-war settlement with Japan. However, the US administration did not dare to completely ignore the USSR when preparing a peace treaty with Japan - even Washington's closest allies could oppose this, not to mention the countries that were victims of Japanese aggression. However, the American draft of the peace treaty was handed over to the Soviet representative at the UN only as an acquaintance. This project was clearly of a separate nature and provided for the preservation of American troops on Japanese territory, which caused protests not only by the USSR, but also by the PRC, North Korea, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Burma.
A conference for the signing of the peace treaty was scheduled for September 4, 1951, and San Francisco was chosen as the site of the signing ceremony. It was precisely about the ceremony, because any discussion and amendment of the text of the treaty drawn up by Washington and approved by London was not allowed. In order to stamp the Anglo-American draft, the list of participants in the signing was selected, mainly from countries of pro-American orientation. A “mechanical majority” was created from countries that had not fought with Japan. Representatives of 21 Latin American, 7 European, 7 African states were convened in San Francisco. The countries that had fought against the Japanese aggressors for many years and suffered the most from them were not admitted to the conference. We did not receive invitations from the PRC, DPRK, FER, Mongolian People's Republic. India and Burma refused to send their delegations to San Francisco in protest against the ignorance of the interests of Asian countries in the post-war settlement, in particular, on the issue of reparations paid by Japan. Indonesia, the Philippines and Holland also made demands for reparations. An absurd situation was created when most of the states that fought with Japan were outside the process of peace settlement with Japan. In essence, it was a boycott of the San Francisco Conference.
A. A. Gromyko. Photo by ITAR-TASS.
However, the Americans were not embarrassed by this - they took a tough course towards concluding a separate treaty and hoped that in the current situation the Soviet Union would join the boycott, giving the United States and its allies complete freedom of action. These calculations did not come true. The Soviet government decided to use the rostrum of the San Francisco conference to expose the separate nature of the treaty and to demand "the conclusion of a peace treaty with Japan that would really meet the interests of a peaceful settlement in the Far East and contribute to the consolidation of world peace."
The Soviet delegation headed for the San Francisco conference in September 1951, headed by Deputy Foreign Minister of the USSR A. A. At the same time, the Chinese leadership was informed that the Soviet government would not sign the document drawn up by the Americans without satisfying this demand.
The directives also called for seeking amendments on the territorial issue. The USSR opposed the fact that the US government, in spite of the international documents it signed, primarily the Yalta Agreement, actually refused to recognize in the treaty the sovereignty of the USSR over the territories of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. "The project is in gross contradiction with the commitments to these territories assumed by the United States and Britain under the Yalta agreement," Gromyko said at the San Francisco conference.
The head of the Soviet delegation, explaining the negative attitude towards the Anglo-American project, outlined nine points on which the USSR could not agree with him. The position of the USSR was supported not only by the allied Poland and Czechoslovakia, but also by a number of Arab countries - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq, whose representatives also demanded to exclude from the text of the treaty the indication that a foreign state could maintain its troops and military bases on Japanese soil …
Although there was little chance that the Americans would heed the opinion of the Soviet Union and the countries in solidarity with it, at the conference the whole world sounded the proposals of the Soviet government that were consistent with the agreements and documents of wartime, which basically boiled down to the following:
1. Under article 2.
Clause "c" shall be stated as follows:
"Japan recognizes the full sovereignty of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the southern part of Sakhalin Island with all the adjacent islands and the Kuril Islands and renounces all rights, legal grounds and claims to these territories."
Under article 3.
To present the article in the following edition:
“The sovereignty of Japan will extend to the territory consisting of the islands of Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, Hokkaido, as well as Ryukyu, Bonin, Rosario, Volcano, Pares Vela, Markus, Tsushima and other islands that were part of Japan until December 7, 1941, with the exception of those territories and islands that are specified in Art. 2.
Under article 6.
Clause "a" shall be stated as follows:
“All armed forces of the Allied and Associated Powers will be withdrawn from Japan as soon as possible, and in any case not more than 90 days from the date of entry into force of this Treaty, after which none of the Allied or Associated Powers, as well as any another foreign power will not have their own troops or military bases on the territory of Japan …
9. New article (in chapter III).
"Japan undertakes not to enter into any coalitions or military alliances directed against any Power that took part with its armed forces in the war against Japan" …
13. New article (in chapter III).
1. “The La Perouse (Soy) and Nemuro straits along the entire Japanese coast, as well as the Sangar (Tsugaru) and Tsushima straits, must be demilitarized. These straits will always be open for the passage of merchant ships of all countries.
2. The straits referred to in paragraph 1 of this article shall be open for the passage of only those warships that belong to the powers adjacent to the Sea of Japan."
A proposal was also made to convene a special conference on the payment of reparations by Japan "with the obligatory participation of countries subjected to Japanese occupation, namely the PRC, Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma, and inviting Japan to this conference."
The Soviet delegation appealed to the conference participants with a request to discuss these proposals of the USSR. However, the United States and its allies refused to make any changes to the draft and put it to a vote on September 8. Under these conditions, the Soviet government was forced to refuse to sign a peace treaty with Japan on American terms. The representatives of Poland and Czechoslovakia did not put their signatures on the treaty either.
Having rejected the amendments proposed by the Soviet government on the recognition by Japan of the full sovereignty of the USSR and the PRC over the territories transferred to them in accordance with the agreements of the members of the anti-Hitler coalition, the drafters of the text of the treaty could not at all ignore the Yalta and Potsdam agreements. The text of the treaty included a clause stating that "Japan renounces all rights, legal grounds and claims to the Kuril Islands and that part of Sakhalin and adjacent islands, over which Japan acquired sovereignty under the Treaty of Portsmouth of September 5, 1905" … By including this clause in the text of the treaty, the Americans by no means sought to "unconditionally satisfy the claims of the Soviet Union," as was stated in the Yalta Agreement. On the contrary, there is a lot of evidence that the United States deliberately worked to ensure that even in the event of the signing of the San Francisco Treaty by the USSR, the contradictions between Japan and the Soviet Union would persist.
It should be noted that the idea of using the USSR's interest in the return of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to bring discord between the USSR and Japan existed in the US State Department since the preparation of the Yalta conference. The materials developed for Roosevelt specifically noted that "a concession to the Soviet Union of the South Kuril Islands will create a situation with which Japan will find it difficult to reconcile … If these islands are turned into an outpost (of Russia), there will be a constant threat for Japan." Unlike Roosevelt, the Truman administration decided to take advantage of the situation and leave the issue of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands as if in limbo.
Protesting against this, Gromyko said that "there should be no ambiguities in resolving territorial issues in connection with the preparation of a peace treaty." The United States, being interested in preventing a final and comprehensive settlement of Soviet-Japanese relations, sought precisely such "ambiguities." How can one otherwise assess the American policy of including in the text of the treaty Japan's renunciation of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, at the same time preventing Japan from recognizing the USSR's sovereignty over these territories? As a result, through the efforts of the United States, a strange, if not to say absurd, situation was created when Japan renounced these territories as if at all, without determining in whose favor this refusal was made. And this happened when South Sakhalin and all the Kuril Islands, in accordance with the Yalta Agreement and other documents, were already officially included in the USSR. Of course, it is no coincidence that the American drafters of the treaty chose not to list in its text by name all the Kuril Islands, which Japan refused, deliberately leaving a loophole for the Japanese government to claim part of them, which was done in the subsequent period. This was so obvious that the British government even tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to prevent such a clear departure from the Big Three agreement - Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill - in Yalta.
The landing of American troops in the Philippines. In the foreground is General MacArthur. October 1944
The memorandum of the British Embassy to the US Department of State dated March 12, 1951 stated: "In accordance with the Livadia (Yalta) Agreement, signed on February 11, 1945, Japan must cede South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union." The American response to the British stated: "The United States believes that the precise definition of the limits of the Kuril Islands should be the subject of a bilateral agreement between the Japanese and Soviet governments, or should be legally established by the International Court of Justice." The position taken by the United States contradicted the Memorandum No. 677/1 issued on January 29, 1946 by the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Powers, General MacArthur, to the Japanese imperial government. It clearly and definitely stated that all islands located to the north of Hokkaido, including “the Habomai (Hapomanjo) group of islands, including the islands of Sushio, Yuri, Akiyuri, Shibotsu and Taraku, were excluded from the jurisdiction of the state or administrative authority of Japan., as well as the island of Sikotan (Shikotan)”. In order to consolidate Japan's pro-American anti-Soviet positions, Washington was ready to consign to oblivion the fundamental documents of the war and post-war period.
On the day of the signing of the separate peace treaty, the Japanese-American "security treaty" was concluded in the US Army NCO's club, which meant the preservation of US military-political control over Japan. According to article I of this treaty, the Japanese government granted the United States "the right to deploy ground, air and naval forces in and near Japan." In other words, the territory of the country, on a contractual basis, was transformed into a bridgehead from which American troops could carry out military operations against neighboring Asian states. The situation was aggravated by the fact that due to Washington's self-serving policy, these states, primarily the USSR and the PRC, formally remained in a state of war with Japan, which could not but affect the international situation in the Asia-Pacific region.
Modern Japanese historians and politicians differ in their assessments of Japan's renunciation of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands contained in the text of the peace treaty. Some demand the abolition of this clause of the treaty and the return of all the Kuril Islands up to Kamchatka. Others are trying to prove that the South Kuril Islands (Kunashir, Iturup, Habomai and Shikotan) do not belong to the Kuril Islands, which Japan abandoned in the San Francisco Treaty. Supporters of the latest version claim: “… There is no doubt that under the San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan renounced the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. However, the addressee of these territories was not specified in this treaty … The Soviet Union refused to sign the San Francisco Treaty. Therefore, from a legal point of view, this state has no right to benefit from this treaty … If the Soviet Union signed and ratified the San Francisco Peace Treaty, this would probably strengthen the opinion among the states parties to the treaty about the validity of the position of the Soviet Union, consisted in the fact that the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands belong to the Soviet Union. In fact, in 1951, having officially recorded its renunciation of these territories in the San Francisco Treaty, Japan once again confirmed its agreement with the terms of unconditional surrender.
The refusal of the Soviet government to sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty is sometimes interpreted in our country as a mistake by Stalin, a manifestation of the inflexibility of his diplomacy, which weakened the USSR's position in defending the rights to own South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. In our opinion, such assessments indicate insufficient consideration of the specifics of the then international situation. The world has entered a long period of the Cold War, which, as the war in Korea showed, could turn into a "hot one" at any moment. For the Soviet government at that time, relations with a military ally of the People's Republic of China were more important than relations with Japan, which finally sided with the United States. In addition, as subsequent events showed, the signature of the USSR under the text of the peace treaty proposed by the Americans did not guarantee Japan's unconditional recognition of the Soviet Union's sovereignty over the Kuril Islands and other lost territories. This was to be achieved through direct Soviet-Japanese negotiations.
Dulles' blackmail and Khrushchev's voluntarism
The conclusion of a military alliance between Japan and the United States seriously complicated the post-war Soviet-Japanese settlement. The unilateral decision of the American government eliminated the Far Eastern Commission and the Allied Council for Japan, through which the USSR sought to influence the democratization of the Japanese state. Anti-Soviet propaganda intensified in the country. The Soviet Union was again viewed as a potential military adversary. However, the Japanese ruling circles realized that the absence of normal relations with such a large and influential state as the USSR did not allow the country to return to the world community, impedes mutually beneficial trade, dooms Japan to a rigid attachment to the United States, and seriously limits the independence of foreign policy. Without the normalization of relations with the USSR, it was difficult to count on Japan's entry into the UN, the establishment of diplomatic relations with socialist countries, primarily with the PRC.
The lack of regulation in relations with Japan did not meet the interests of the Soviet Union either, for it did not allow establishing trade with the Far Eastern neighbor, which was rapidly recovering its economic power, hampered cooperation in such an important economic sector for both countries as fishing, hindered contacts with Japanese democratic organizations and, as a consequence, contributed to the increasing involvement of Japan in the anti-Soviet political and military strategy of the United States. The one-sided orientation towards the United States caused discontent among the Japanese people. An increasing number of Japanese from various strata began to demand a more independent foreign policy and the normalization of relations with neighboring socialist countries.
At the beginning of 1955, the USSR representative in Japan turned to Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu with a proposal to start negotiations on the normalization of Soviet-Japanese relations. After a lengthy debate about the venue for the meetings of the diplomats of the two countries, a compromise was reached - the plenipotentiary delegations were to arrive in London. On June 3, in the building of the USSR Embassy in the British capital, Soviet-Japanese negotiations began to end the state of war, conclude a peace treaty and restore diplomatic and trade relations. The Soviet delegation was headed by the well-known diplomat Ya. A. Malik, who during the war was the USSR ambassador to Japan, and then in the rank of deputy foreign minister - the Soviet Union's representative to the UN. The Japanese government delegation was headed by a Japanese diplomat with the rank of Ambassador Shunichi Matsumoto, close to Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama.
In his opening speech at the opening of the talks, the head of the Japanese delegation noted that “almost 10 years have passed since the day when, unfortunately, a state of war arose between the two states. The Japanese people sincerely wish the resolution of a number of open issues that have arisen over the years and the normalization of relations between the two states. " At the next meeting, Matsumoto read out a memorandum that the Japanese side proposed to use as the basis for the upcoming talks. In this memorandum, the Japanese Foreign Ministry put forward the following conditions for the restoration of relations between the two countries: the transfer to Japan of the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin, the return to their homeland of Japanese war criminals convicted in the Soviet Union and a positive resolution of issues related to Japanese fishing in the northwestern Pacific, and also promoting the admission of Japan to the UN, etc. At the same time, the Japanese side did not hide the fact that the main emphasis in the course of the negotiations would be on "resolving the territorial problem."
Map of the so-called "disputed territories".
The position of the Soviet Union was that, confirming the results of the war that had already taken place, create conditions for the all-round mutually beneficial development of bilateral relations in all areas. This was evidenced by the draft Soviet-Japanese peace treaty proposed on June 14, 1955 by the Soviet delegation. It provided for an end to the state of war between the two countries and the restoration of official relations between them on the basis of equality, mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs and non-aggression; confirmed and concretized the existing international agreements concerning Japan signed by the allies during the Second World War.
The Japanese delegation, fulfilling the directive of the government, made claims to "the islands of Habomai, Shikotan, the Tishima archipelago (Kuril Islands) and the southern part of Karafuto Island (Sakhalin)." The draft agreement proposed by the Japanese side read: “1. In the territories of Japan occupied by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a result of the war, the sovereignty of Japan will be fully restored on the day this Treaty enters into force. 2. Troops and civil servants of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics currently in the territories specified in paragraph 1 of this article must be withdrawn as soon as possible, and, in any case, no later than 90 days from the date of accession. by virtue of this Agreement ".
However, Tokyo soon realized that an attempt to radically revise the results of the war was doomed to failure and would only lead to an exacerbation of bilateral relations with the USSR. This could disrupt negotiations on the repatriation of convicted Japanese prisoners of war, the achievement of an agreement on fishing issues, and block the decision on the admission of Japan to the UN. Therefore, the Japanese government was ready to reach an agreement to limit its territorial claims to the southern part of the Kuriles, stating that it allegedly did not fall under the San Francisco Peace Treaty. This was clearly a far-fetched assertion, for on Japanese maps of pre-war and wartime the South Kuril Islands were included in the geographical and administrative concept of "Tishima", that is, the Kuril archipelago.
Putting forward the so-called territorial issue, the Japanese government realized that it was illusory to hope for any serious compromises on the part of the Soviet Union. The secret instruction of the Japanese Foreign Ministry envisaged three stages of putting forward territorial demands: “First, demand the transfer to Japan of all the Kuril Islands with the expectation of further discussion; then, somewhat retreating, to seek the concession of the southern Kuril Islands to Japan for "historical reasons", and, finally, to insist at least on the transfer of the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan, making this requirement a sine qua non for the successful completion of the negotiations."
The fact that the final goal of the diplomatic bargaining was precisely Habomai and Shikotan was repeatedly said by the Japanese Prime Minister himself. Thus, during a conversation with the Soviet representative in January 1955, Hatoyama said that "Japan will insist during negotiations on the transfer of the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to it." There was no talk of any other territories. Responding to reproaches from the opposition, Hatoyama emphasized that the issue of Habomai and Shikotan should not be confused with the issue of all the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin, which was resolved by the Yalta Agreement. The prime minister has repeatedly made it clear that, in his opinion, Japan has no right to demand the transfer of all the Kuriles and South Sakhalin to it, and that he in no way sees this as an indispensable precondition for the normalization of Japanese-Soviet relations. Hatoyama also admitted that since Japan renounced the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin under the San Francisco Treaty, it has no reason to demand the transfer of these territories to it.
US Secretary of State J. Dulles.
Demonstrating its dissatisfaction with this position of Tokyo, the US government refused to receive the Japanese foreign minister in Washington in March 1955. Unprecedented pressure began on Hatoyama and his supporters in order to prevent the Japanese-Soviet settlement.
The Americans were invisibly present at the talks in London. It got to the point that State Department officials forced the leadership of the Japanese Foreign Ministry to acquaint them with Soviet notes, diplomatic correspondence, with the delegation's reports and Tokyo's instructions on negotiating tactics. The Kremlin knew about this. In a situation where the failure of the negotiations would have further pushed Japan away from the USSR towards the United States, the then leader of the Soviet Union, NS Khrushchev, set out to "organize a breakthrough" by proposing a compromise solution to the territorial dispute. In an effort to break the deadlock in the negotiations, he instructed the head of the Soviet delegation to propose an option according to which Moscow agreed to transfer the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan, but only after the signing of a peace treaty. The announcement of the readiness of the Soviet government to hand over the islands of Habomai and Shikotan, located near Hokkaido to Japan, was made on August 9 in an informal setting during a conversation between Malik and Matsumoto in the garden of the Japanese embassy in London.
Such a serious change in the Soviet position surprised the Japanese and even caused confusion. As the head of the Japanese delegation, Matsumoto, later admitted, when he first heard the proposal of the Soviet side about the readiness to hand over the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan, he “at first did not believe my ears,” but “was very happy in my heart”. And this is not surprising. Indeed, as shown above, the return of these particular islands was the task of the Japanese delegation. In addition, receiving Habomai and Shikotan, the Japanese legally expanded their fishing zone, which was a very important goal of normalizing Japanese-Soviet relations. It seemed that after such a generous concession, the negotiations should have quickly ended in success.
However, what was beneficial to the Japanese did not suit the Americans. The United States openly opposed the conclusion of a peace treaty between Japan and the USSR on the terms proposed by the Soviet side. While exerting strong pressure on the Hatoyama cabinet, the American government did not hesitate to face direct threats. US Secretary of State J. Dulles in a note to the Japanese government in October 1955 warned that the expansion of economic ties and the normalization of relations with the USSR "could become an obstacle to the implementation of the US government's aid program for Japan." Subsequently, he "strictly ordered the US Ambassador to Japan Allison and his assistants to prevent the successful completion of the Japanese-Soviet negotiations."
Permanent Representative of the USSR to the UN Ya. A. Malik.
Contrary to Khrushchev's calculations, it was not possible to break the deadlock in the negotiations. His ill-considered and hasty concession led to the opposite result. As has happened before in Russian-Japanese relations, Tokyo perceived the proposed compromise not as a generous gesture of goodwill, but as a signal for toughening territorial demands made on the Soviet Union. A principled assessment of Khrushchev's unauthorized actions was given by one of the members of the Soviet delegation at the London talks, later Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences S. L. Tikhvinsky: “Ya. A. Malik, acutely experiencing Khrushchev's dissatisfaction with the slow progress of the negotiations and without consulting the other members of the delegation, prematurely expressed in this conversation with Matsumoto the spare that the delegation had from the very beginning of the negotiations, approved by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (that is, by N. S. Khrushchev himself), a spare position, without completely exhausting the defense of the main position in the negotiations. His statement caused first bewilderment, and then joy and further exorbitant demands on the part of the Japanese delegation … Nikita Khrushchev's decision to abandon sovereignty over a part of the Kuril Islands in favor of Japan was a thoughtless, voluntaristic act … The cession of a part of Soviet territory to Japan without permission Khrushchev went to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Soviet people, destroyed the international legal basis of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements and contradicted the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which recorded Japan's refusal from South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands …"
Evidence that the Japanese decided to await additional territorial concessions from the Soviet government was the termination of the London talks.
In January 1956, the second stage of the London negotiations began, which, due to the obstruction of the US government, also did not lead to any result. On March 20, 1956, the head of the Japanese delegation was recalled to Tokyo, and, to the satisfaction of the Americans, the negotiations practically stopped.
Moscow carefully analyzed the situation and by its actions tried to push the Japanese leadership to understand the urgent need for an early settlement of relations with the Soviet Union, even in spite of the US position. Talks in Moscow on fisheries in the Northwest Pacific helped break the negotiations. On March 21, 1956, a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On the protection of stocks and regulation of the salmon fishing on the high seas in areas adjacent to the territorial waters of the USSR in the Far East" was published. It was announced that during the salmon spawning period, their catch was limited for both Soviet and foreign organizations and citizens. This ruling caused a stir in Japan. In the absence of diplomatic relations with the USSR, it was very difficult to obtain licenses for salmon fishing established by the Soviet side and to agree on the amount of catch. The influential fishing circles of the country demanded that the government should resolve the problem as soon as possible, namely, before the end of fishing season.
Fearing the growth of dissatisfaction in the country with the delay in restoring diplomatic, trade and economic relations with the USSR, the Japanese government at the end of April urgently sent to Moscow the Minister of Fisheries, Agriculture and Forestry Ichiro Kono,who was to achieve an understanding of the difficulties that had arisen for Japan in negotiations with the Soviet government. In Moscow, Kono negotiated with the top officials of the state and took a constructive position, which made it possible to quickly come to an agreement. On May 14, the bilateral Fisheries Convention and the Agreement on Assistance to People in Distress at Sea were signed. However, the documents came into force only on the day of the restoration of diplomatic relations. This required the Japanese government to decide on the earliest possible resumption of negotiations on the conclusion of a peace treaty. Kono, on his own initiative, invited the Soviet leaders to return the delegations of the two countries to the negotiating table.
A new round of negotiations took place in Moscow. The Japanese delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Shigemitsu, who again began to convince the interlocutors of the "vital necessity for Japan" of the islands of Kunashir and Iturup. However, the Soviet side firmly refused to negotiate over these territories. Since the escalation of tensions in the negotiations could lead to the rejection of the Soviet government and from the earlier promise made about Habomai and Shikotan, Shigemitsu began to lean towards ending the fruitless discussion and signing a peace treaty on the terms proposed by Khrushchev. On August 12, the minister said in Tokyo: “The talks have already come to an end. Discussions are over. Everything that could be done has been done. It is necessary to define our line of conduct. Further delay can only hurt our prestige and put us in an uncomfortable position. It is possible that the question of transferring Habomai and Shikotan to us will be questioned."
Once again, the Americans intervened rudely. At the end of August, not hiding his intention to disrupt the Soviet-Japanese negotiations, Dulles threatened the Japanese government that if, under a peace treaty with the USSR, Japan agrees to recognize Kunashir and Iturup as Soviet, the United States will forever retain the occupied island of Okinawa and the entire Ryukyu archipelago. In order to encourage the Japanese government to continue making demands that were unacceptable to the Soviet Union, the United States went in direct violation of the Yalta Agreement. On September 7, 1956, the State Department sent a memorandum to the Japanese government stating that the United States did not recognize any decision confirming the sovereignty of the USSR over the territories that Japan had renounced under the peace treaty. Playing on the nationalistic feelings of the Japanese and trying to present themselves as almost defenders of the national interests of Japan, officials of the US State Department invented the following formulation: were part of Japan and should fairly be treated as belonging to Japan. " The note went on to say: "The United States viewed the Yalta Agreement simply as a declaration of the common goals of the countries participating in the Yalta Conference, and not as a legally binding final decision of these powers on territorial issues." The meaning of this "new" position of the United States was that the San Francisco Treaty allegedly left the territorial issue open, "without defining the ownership of the territories that Japan had abandoned." Thus, the rights of the USSR were questioned not only to the South Kurils, but also to South Sakhalin and all the Kuril Islands. This was a direct violation of the Yalta Agreement.
US open interference in the course of Japan's negotiations with the Soviet Union, attempts to threaten and blackmail the Japanese government provoked strong protests from both the country's opposition forces and the leading media. At the same time, criticism sounded not only against the United States, but also against its own political leadership, which meekly follows Washington's instructions. However, the dependence, primarily economic, on the United States was so great that it was very difficult for the Japanese government to go against the Americans. Then Prime Minister Hatoyama assumed full responsibility, who believed that Japanese-Soviet relations could be settled on the basis of a peace treaty with a subsequent resolution of the territorial issue. Despite his illness, he decided to go to Moscow and sign a document on the normalization of Japanese-Soviet relations. In order to calm down his political opponents in the ruling party, Hatoyama promised to leave the post of prime minister after completing his mission in the USSR. On September 11, Hatoyama sent a letter to the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers in which he announced his readiness to continue negotiations on the normalization of relations on the condition that the territorial issue would be discussed later. On October 2, 1956, the Cabinet of Ministers authorized a trip to Moscow for a Japanese government delegation headed by Prime Minister Hatoyama. Kono and Matsumoto were included in the delegation.
And yet, tough pressure from the United States and anti-Soviet circles in Japan did not allow achieving the set goal - to conclude a full-scale Soviet-Japanese peace treaty. To the satisfaction of the US State Department, the Japanese government, for the sake of ending the state of war and restoring diplomatic relations, agreed to sign not a treaty, but a Soviet-Japanese joint declaration. This decision was forced for both sides, because Japanese politicians, looking back at the United States, insisted to the last on the transfer of Japan, in addition to Habomai and Shikotan, also Kunashir and Iturup, and the Soviet government resolutely rejected these claims. This is evidenced, in particular, by the intensive negotiations between Khrushchev and Minister Kono, which lasted literally until the day the declaration was signed.
In a conversation with Khrushchev on October 18, Kono proposed the following version of the agreement: “Japan and the USSR agreed to continue, after the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between Japan and the USSR, negotiations on the conclusion of a Peace Treaty, which includes a territorial issue.
At the same time, the USSR, meeting the wishes of Japan and taking into account the interests of the Japanese state, agreed to transfer the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan, however, that the actual transfer of these islands to Japan will be made after the conclusion of the Peace Treaty between Japan and the USSR."
Khrushchev said that the Soviet side generally agreed with the proposed option, but asked to delete the expression "including the territorial issue." Khrushchev explained the request to remove the mention of the “territorial issue” as follows: “… If you leave the above expression, you might think that there is some kind of territorial issue between Japan and the Soviet Union, besides Habomai and Shikotan. This can lead to misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the documents that we intend to sign."
Although Khrushchev called his request a "remark of a purely editorial nature", in reality it was a matter of principle, namely, the actual agreement of Japan that the territorial problem would be limited to the question of belonging only to the islands of Habomai and Shikotan. The next day, Kono told Khrushchev, "After consulting with Prime Minister Hatoyama, we decided to accept Mr. Khrushchev's proposal to delete the words 'including the territorial issue.' As a result, on October 19, 1956, the Joint Declaration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan was signed, in the 9th paragraph of which the USSR agreed to “transfer to Japan of the Habomai Treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan”.
On November 27, the Joint Declaration was unanimously ratified by the House of Representatives of the Japanese Parliament, and on December 2, with three against, by the House of Councilors. On December 8, the emperor of Japan approved the ratification of the Joint Declaration and other documents. On the same day, it was ratified by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Then, on December 12, 1956, an exchange of letters took place in Tokyo, marking the entry into force of the Joint Declaration and the protocol annexed to it.
However, the United States continued to demand, in an ultimatum, to refuse to conclude a Soviet-Japanese peace treaty on the terms of the Joint Declaration. Japan's new Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, yielding to US pressure, began to withdraw from negotiations on a peace treaty. To "substantiate" this position, demands were again put forward to return to Japan the four South Kuril Islands. This was a clear departure from the provisions of the Joint Declaration. The Soviet government acted in strict accordance with the agreements reached. The USSR refused to receive reparations from Japan, agreed to early release the Japanese war criminals who were serving their sentences, supported Japan's request for admission to the UN.
A very negative impact on bilateral political relations was exerted by the course of the Kishi cabinet on the further involvement of Japan in the US military strategy in the Far East. The conclusion in 1960 of the new Japanese-American Security Treaty directed against the USSR and the People's Republic of China made it even more difficult to resolve the issue of the border line between Japan and the USSR, because in the current military-political situation of the Cold War, any territorial concessions to Japan would contribute to the expansion of the territory used by foreign troops. In addition, the strengthening of military cooperation between Japan and the United States was very painful for Khrushchev personally. He was outraged by the actions of Tokyo, regarded them as an insult, disrespect for his efforts to find a compromise on the territorial issue.
The Soviet leader's reaction was violent. On his instructions, the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on January 27, 1960, sent a memorandum to the Japanese government, in which he indicated that “only on condition that all foreign troops are withdrawn from Japan and a peace treaty between the USSR and Japan is signed, the islands of Habomai and Shikotan will be transferred to Japan, as it was stipulated by the Joint Declaration of the USSR and Japan of October 19, 1956 ". To this Tokyo replied: “The Japanese government cannot approve of the position of the Soviet Union, which has put forward new conditions for the implementation of the provisions of the Joint Declaration on the territorial issue and is thus trying to change the content of the declaration. Our country will relentlessly seek the return to us not only of the Habomai Islands and the Shikotan Islands, but also of other original Japanese territories."
The attitude of the Japanese side to the 1956 Joint Declaration is as follows: “During the negotiations on the conclusion of a peace treaty between Japan and the Soviet Union in October 1956, the top leaders of both states signed a Joint Declaration of Japan and the USSR, according to which the parties agreed to continue negotiations on a peace treaty and normalized interstate relations. Despite the fact that as a result of these negotiations the Soviet Union agreed to transfer the group of Habomai Islands and Shikotan Island to Japan, the USSR did not agree to return the Kunashir Island and Iturup Island.
The 1956 Joint Declaration of Japan and the Soviet Union is an important diplomatic document that has been ratified by the parliaments of each of these states. This document is equal in its legal force to the contract. It is not a document whose content could be changed with just one notification. The Joint Declaration of Japan and the USSR clearly stated that the Soviet Union agreed to transfer to Japan the group of Habomai Islands and Shikotan Island, and this transfer was not accompanied by any conditions that would constitute a reservation …"
One could agree with such an interpretation of the meaning of the Joint Declaration, if not for one important "but". The Japanese side does not want to admit the obvious - the said islands, by agreement, could become the object of transfer only after the conclusion of a peace treaty. And this was the main and indispensable condition. In Japan, for some reason, they decided that the issue of Habomai and Shikotan had already been resolved, and for the signing of a peace treaty, it was allegedly necessary to resolve the issue of Kunashir and Iturup, the transfer of which the Soviet government had never agreed to. This position was invented in the 1950s and 1960s by the forces that set themselves the goal of putting forward conditions that were obviously unacceptable for Moscow to block the process of concluding a Japanese-Soviet peace treaty for many years.
In an effort to get out of the "Kuril impasse", the leaders of modern Russia made attempts to "revive" the provisions of the 1956 Joint Declaration. On November 14, 2004, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation S. V. Lavrov, expressing the point of view of the Russian leadership, said: partners are ready to fulfill the same agreements. So far, as we know, we have not managed to come to an understanding of these volumes as we see it and as we saw in 1956”.
However, this gesture was not appreciated in Japan. On November 16, 2004, then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi arrogantly remarked: "Until the ownership of all four islands to Japan is clearly determined, a peace treaty will not be concluded …" Apparently, realizing the futility of further negotiations in order to find a compromise, On September 27, 2005, V. Putin stated with all certainty that the Kuril Islands "are under the sovereignty of Russia, and in this part she does not intend to discuss anything with Japan … This is enshrined in international law, this is the result of the Second World War."
This position is shared by the majority of the people of our country. According to repeated opinion polls, about 90 percent of Russians oppose any territorial concessions to Japan. At the same time, about 80 percent believe that it is time to stop discussing this issue.
