© Thomas Peter/ReutersSouth Kuril Islands
Tokyo will continue to seek a peace settlement with Russia but only after the island dispute is resolved, the government's spokesperson Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Wednesday, while declining to comment on Putin's peace treaty proposal.
"I don't want to comment on what President Putin said," Suga said at a regular briefing in Tokyo. "However, our position that the Northern Territories issue is resolved before any peace treaty remains unchanged."
The Russian president had earlier offered to sign the agreement by the end of the year and "without any preconditions." He made the remarks while meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Eastern Economic Forum in Russia. Abe agreed that both nations should aspire to sign the peace treaty in the future, and that the leaders should meet more often to resolve the conflict.
Japan and Russia didn't sign a formal peace treaty after World War II. Japan claims south Kuril Islands which have been Russian territory since 1945.
Just handing them back to Japan would set a terrible precedent that might lead to world pressure, for example, to also return the Koenigsberg region (Kaliningrad Oblast) that the Soviet Union appropriated for itself after WWII from Germany. (The fact that the SU completely "ethnically cleansed" that region of all Germans following the conquest is immaterial.)
As an aside: I would wager that the US will try to shame Russia in the world's eyes (and exert other kinds of pressure that they can) to return the Kurils to Japan as being inappropriate to hold onto land won by conquest. But, since Israel owns the US gov't lock, stock, and barrel, there will be nary a peep about them returning all the occupied/annexed territories.