MOSCOW, October 7 – Novosti. The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a resolution recognizing the southern Kuril Islands as “Russian-occupied territory of Japan”, follows from the data on the website of the parliament.
“The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine declares its support for the position of Japan in relation to its Northern Territories; recognizes that these territories continue to be under the occupation of the Russian Federation,” the text of the document says.
In the same place, Kyiv called on the international community to take all possible measures “on the legal formalization of the status of the Northern Territories of Japan.”
In 1956, the USSR and Japan signed a joint declaration in which Moscow agreed to consider the possibility of transferring the two islands in the presence of a peace agreement. The USSR hoped to put an end to this, while Japan considered the deal only part of the solution to the problem, without giving up its claims to all the islands. Subsequent negotiations came to nothing. Moscow’s position is that the islands became part of the USSR following World War II, and Russia’s sovereignty over them is beyond doubt.
