Kuril Island Dispute
The term “Kuril Islands” refers to a 1300 kilometre long archipelago stretching from Hokkaido Japan and Kamchatka Russia seperating Okhotsk Sea from the North Pacific Ocean.
The archipelago has 56 islands and many minor rocks. The 50 years old Kuril Island dispute between Russia and Japan is mainly on four islands viz. Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai rocks, which are in possession of Russia and claimed by Japan. Further, the ownership of South Kuril Islands is also claimed by Ainu people {they are indigenous people of some parts of Japan}.
Background
The Kuril Island dispute dates back to the 17th century. It is said that Japanese people migrated north to the islands in the 18th and 19th century. In 1855, Treaty of Shimoda was signed between Russia and Japan. The treaty gave Japan the ownership of four southern islands while giving Russia the control of everything to the north. By the time of the World War II 17,000 Japanese residents were residing on three out of the four islands. At the end of the Second World War, Russia took the control of the islands and by 1949 deported all the residents back to Japan. The San Francisco Peace Conference after WWII resulted in the San Francisco Peace treaty in 1951. The treaty was signed between the Allies and Japan. As per the treaty, Japan agreed to renounce all the title, right and claim to the Kuril Islands. But this treaty could do nothing on the ground as Russia did not sign the treaty and the Japanese government has never recognised the four islands under dispute as a part of Kuril Islands. The islands are under the effective control of Russia since 1945.
In 1956, diplomatic ties got restored between Japan and Russia by Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration. During that time, Russia offered to give away the two islands closest to Japan. But the offer was rejected by Japan as the two islands constituted only 7% of the land in question. The most serious attempts in settling the question was made in the years 1998 and 2001. But both the attempts were failures. Since then the dispute remains unresolved and flares up periodically.
Recent Efforts
As an effort to settle the dispute, Putin-Abe meeting took place in Moscow in May, 2016. As expected, the meeting did not lead to any major breakthrough. Abe’s intention of engaging with Russia with a new approach free of any past ideas has not been able to bear any fruit. Instead, the dispute of late has become a central element of the Russo-Japanese relationship. We note here that Russia and Japan don’t share very good relations since Japan joined the west in imposing sanctions on Russia for its actions in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
Within three weeks of the Putin-Abe meet, Russia announced that it will deploy a coastal defence system and Aeleron-3 drones to protect the islands against foreign aircrafts. In addition, Russia is also considering opening a naval base on the islands to host its Pacific fleet. All these proposals have drawn severe condemnation from the Japanese side.
Importance of Kuril Island
The four islands which make a part of the Kuril Island chain covering an area of about 5000 square kms. They hold great strategic significance:
- The Kurils are the gateway to the sea of Okhotsk, which lies off the coast of Russia’s Far East.
- Control of the islands has been crucial for Russia, which has given it access to the Pacific Ocean.
- Russia has built a military base on Shikotan Island, while also placing border forces on the four islands.
- Besides, military importance, the islands possess vast mineral wealth, of about 160 million tonnes of natural gas and 1900 tonnes of gold and other valuable metals like silver, titanium, sulphur and rhenium. The total value of the four islands has been estimated to 50 billion US dollars.
Neither emotive reason nor the abundance of natural resources has made Russia or Japan to reconsider the islands to be important but it is largely due to the strategic value of this chain of islands. They will act as Russia’s main naval gateways to the Pacific Ocean. In addition, the islands of Kunashir and Iturup are resource-rich and are believed to have abundance deposits of rare earth metals. More importantly, the islands of Kunashir and Iturup are an integral part of Russia’s Asia-Pacific Defence and economic strategy. Apart from this, the success of oil and gas projects off nearby Sakhalin Island has also enabled energy companies to survey the waters near the Kurils for hydrocarbon deposits. Besides this, there are virgin forests, volcanoes and waterfalls in the islands which hold importance from the perspective of tourism.
Proposed Northern Islands Socio-Economic Condominium (NISEC) solution
Both Russia and Japan are super powers and neither would like to go back from their respective stance, a condominium has been proposed for bringing both the countries to a respectable compromise. Such a compromise would imply that neither of the countries would need to cede the territory and the islands would come under joint administrative control of the two countries.
We note here that joint-ownership arrangement is not a new concept. From 1906 and 1980, New Hebrides {it is now a part of Vanuatu} was jointly held by Britain and France. Similarly, Tangier {a city of Morocco} was maintained as a demilitarized zone by European states from 1912 to 1956. Further, the Sakhalin was occupied by both Russia and Japan till 1945 when Japanese defeat in WW-II led to full control of Soviet Union.
This solution is pragmatic and may be reached in near future. It does not result in any sort of territorial sovereignty on either Russia or Japan’s end. The NISEC would enable free movement of people, goods, services, and investment capital between these two administrative units. The proposed body would not give each side the right to indefinitely remain on the other’s land, but it would serve as a facilitating incentive for taking bilateral relations to the next level. Also NISEC would have an impact on the Asian economies. Russia and Japan are super powers in the Asian region. A peaceful Russia and Japan is the all Asian counties interest
