After Japan imposed sanctions against Russia, they have responded by scrapping their World War 2 peace treaty with Japan as well as an agreement from 1991 that allows Japanese citizens to travel to the Kuril Islands without visa. Moscow has cited Tokyo’s “openly unfriendly” conducted, regarding the newly imposed sanctions.
On Monday the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that due to the “obvious unfriendly nature of the unilateral restrictions imposed by Japan against Russia in connection with the situation in Ukraine,” it would “terminate” the visa-free entitlements and “does not intend to continue negotiations with Japan on a peace agreement.” The Ministry elaborated that “all responsibility for the damage to Japan’s bilateral cooperation and interests lies with official Tokyo, which deliberately opted for an anti-Russian course instead of developing mutually beneficial cooperation and good neighborliness.”
Post Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Japan joined the US-NATO economic embargo against Russia and on March 16th it revoked Russia’s “most favored nation” trade status. Due to joint claims over the Kuril chain of islands Japan and Russia never formally signed a peace treaty after World War Two and both nations claim ownership of the islands.
For now, any further discussions of a peace treaty between the two nations are on hold until a resolution can be developed.
