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Kurile Islands - 1990
Kurile Islands - 1990
Jacek Pałkiewicz2006-06-17 15:59:04
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between Japan and Russia, Etorofu, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai had always been Japanese territories and had never been Russian territories, unlike Sakhalin Island and the Kurile Islands, that is eighteen islands north of Urup.
Some have argued as if the Russo-Japanese War and the resulting Portsmouth Treaty had nullified both the 1855 and 1875 treaties. However, others say that the territorial delimitations established by the two nations in accordance with the 1855 and 1875 treaties were never nullified by either the Russo-Japanese War or the subsequent Portsmouth Treaty. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, recently, a document was published in Russia which stated that until the fall of Imperial Russia, the border between Russia and Japan had been determined by the 1875 and 1905 treaties, which were concluded satisfying all the necessary formal requirements, and providing for no period of validity. In accordance with international law, a newly formed state succeeded. The national boundaries of its predecessor. Therefore, these boundaries continued to be the end of Russian territory under the rule of the Kerenski's provisional government and of Soviet Russia after the Revolution of 1917.
Then, came World War II and the territorial carve-up at the Yalta Conference. The Second World War was fought between September 1939 and August 1945. Japan and the Soviet Union were not at war throughout almost the entire period of the war because a neutrality pact was concluded between the two countries in April 1941. It was valid for five years. However, on August 1945, three days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the day an another one was dropped on Nagasaki, the Soviet Union, violating this neutrality pact, entered into war against Japan that was already on the brink of defeat. A week later, on August 14, Japan accepted the Potsdam Proclamation and surrendered to the Allied Powers.
After Japan's defeat,
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