Photo/Illutration Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks with reporters on March 22. (Koichi Ueda)

Japan’s conciliatory stance toward Russia over the thorny Northern Territories issue, which as recently as September 2019 seemed to hold out prospects of some sort of deal eventually being reached, clearly needs a major rethink in light of the Ukraine invasion that triggered tit-for-tat retaliatory measures.

Back then, Shinzo Abe was prime minister and he banked on developing a close personal rapport with Russian President Vladimir Putin in putting the decades-old matter of sovereignty to rest.

His hope was that by first agreeing to a peace deal to formally end hospitalities emanating from World War II, it would pave the way for the return of at least two of the four islands off Hokkaido seized by Soviet forces in the waning days of the conflict.

Meeting in Vladivostok, Abe told Putin: “Vladimir, you and I are looking at the same future. There are infinite possibilities for our bilateral relationship.”

It was the 27th time for the two leaders to hold face-to-face talks with the aim of ostensibly thrashing out a breakthrough that offered the prize of massive economic benefits to Russia.

Abe strongly felt the need for a close personal relationship with the Russian president if he was to resolve the matter.

Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida saw no need to adopt a different approach and likewise pinned his hopes on sealing a peace treaty with Russia at some point.

But the bilateral relationship is now in tatters following a March 21 announcement by Russia’s foreign ministry that Moscow could no longer continue with negotiations toward a peace treaty.

This was in retaliation for sanctions imposed by Japan to protest Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine in late February.

The announcement left the government pondering whether Russia was cutting off all talks toward a peace treaty or if it meant a temporary tabling of negotiations.

In any event, negotiations were not really going anywhere even when Abe was in charge.

After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Japan only imposed comparatively weak sanctions against Moscow. Two years later, Abe and Putin agreed to begin discussions about joint economic activity on the Northern Territories.

But even with the conciliatory approach taken by Abe, Russia seemed to go out of its way to prevent any progress in bilateral negotiations.

In 2018, Abe indicated that Japan was moving away from its long-held insistence that all four islands be returned as a single package and would accelerate peace treaty negotiations based on a 1956 Japan-Russia joint declaration that Habomai and Shikotan would be returned to Japan once a peace treaty was signed.

But in subsequent talks, Moscow insisted that Tokyo recognize that sovereignty over the four islands converted to the Soviet Union as spoils of war, a view that was totally unacceptable to Japan.

A July 2020 amendment to the Russian Constitution banned the ceding of any Russian territory, dealing a mortal blow to negotiations with Japan.

And now with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Japan had no choice but go along with the economic sanctions imposed by other Western nations.

Japan was pushed into a corner but felt it had to respond in kind so as not to send the wrong message to China, which has its own designs on Taiwan and seems intent on increasing its maritime presence in the East China Sea, where sovereignty over the uninhabited Senkaku islands is in dispute.

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