Word: kurils
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Sagoya and his bullyboys were by no means the only Japanese who were disturbed by Hatoyama's new-found willingness to agree to an interim peace settlement that would not commit Russia to return to Japan the southern Kuril islands of Etorofu and Kunashiri. Earlier, the powerful businessmen who finance Hatoyama's Liberal-Democratic Party demanded that the Premier abandon the Moscow trip unless the Russians could be persuaded to give advance assurances that possession of Etorofu and Kunashiri would "continue to be the subject of negotiations" even after a peace settlement. To pacify the businessmen, the Hatoyama...
After the last round of talks in Moscow (TIME, Aug. 13), when Russian Foreign Minister Dmitry Shepilov brusquely refused to consider a treaty which would return to Japan the small southern Kuril islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu, the Japanese public burst into irate criticism of Hatoyama and his government. Politically as well as physically, Ichiro Hatoyama was in poor shape to fight such attacks. With illness, his speech had grown slurred, his inordinate need for sleep had kept him away from important Cabinet meetings and caused the press to label him "the afternoon-nap Prime Minister." Worst of all, leaders...
Malik offered to help Japan get into the U.N., but he made no promise to return to Japan Southern Sakhalin or any of the Kuril Islands, or the 10,000 Japanese P.W.s and "war criminals" still held by the Russians. Of course, Malik might yet unbend with a few concessions, on the theory that he who gives slowly appears to give more. But the Japanese negotiators were plainly surprised and disappointed after all the fine Russian talk of wanting to "normalize" relations. Last week the Japanese formally rejected Malik's treaty draft, and hoped he had something better...
...formal agenda for the talks has been set, the subject matter is plain for all to see. Russia wants Japan to declare itself neutralist, and has in its power, if it wishes, the ability to pay the Japanese a formidable price, to wit: return of Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; entry into the U.N.; return of 10,000 Japanese P.W.s and "war criminals"; trade and fishing concessions in Siberian waters. Some or all of these inducements, plus the "normalized relations" promised to the Japanese electorate by Premier Ichiro Hatoyama last February, might bring the neutralist pledge...
...Russians also could pay much: trade and fishing concessions, or the return of Southern Sakhalin and the speckled Kuril Islands of Japan's northwestern shores, or the return, say, of 10,000 Japanese P.W.s still held in Soviet labor camps. And the Russians, as usual, could gain much by dangling such baubles without delivering them. Obeying Japan's new impulse to neutralism, Mamoru Shigemitsu commented that "there is need for a careful study of the sincerity of the Russian statement." Molotov's initiative, he added, was "a big step forward...