Japanese Foreign Ministry again calls Russia-controlled Southern Kuril Islands ‘illegally occupied territory’ after 20 years

Japan’s Ministry of Foreign affairs has called the southern Kurils ‘an illegally occupied territory’ in the new edition of their Diplomacy Bluebook, reports Kyodo. 

The Japanese officials last used this exact definition in 2003. Last year's edition of the guide labelled the disputed territory as ‘belonging to Japan’. The new guide also makes the point that assessing the prospect of Japan and Russia signing a peace treaty and solving the dispute has now become more challenging in the face of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine. 

The Foreign Ministry has emphasised that it condemns the invasion. The Southern Kuril Islands is a group of four islands called Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup and Habomai, located to the southeast of Japan in the Sea of Okhotsk.

The islands came under the control of the Soviet Union after WW2. Japan claims this territory as their own, a peace treaty between the countries has not been signed ever since. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced that it will stop any diplomatic activity on the matter owing to ‘obviously unfriendly unilateral restrictions’ against the Russian state as Japan joined the West in imposing economic sanctions following Russia’s invasion into Ukraine.