Four Tiny Irritants to Better Relations : Time for Moscow to give Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai to Japan

A new test in post-Cold War diplomacy is about to engage Moscow and Tokyo as they attempt to settle their 45-year territorial dispute over four tiny islands in the Kuril chain.

In all that time, Japan has properly pressed its historical claim to the islands, which were seized by the Soviets toward the end of World War II. It’s time for Moscow to give up Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai, located off Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido and known as the Northern Territories in Japan.

A settlement would clear the way for a long overdue peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo. In fact, the phrase giving up probably gives the wrong impression, because ending their historically hostile relation-ship may be the only hope for Moscow to get access to much needed Japanese capital and technology.

So when Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze meets with his Japanese counterpart Taro Nakayama this week, they should include a proposal to discuss the Kuril dispute as part of an agenda for Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s spring 1991 visit to Tokyo. It will be a historic first trip to Japan by a Soviet head of state. Japan is the only major industrialized country that Gorbachev has not visited in his attempt to bolster Soviet relations with the West and its allies.

The disputed islands have little political--and a debatable strategic-- significance to the Soviets. Indeed, they may be more important today as bargaining chips to securing economic development and trade for Soviet Asia. A Pravda commentator has already recommended transferring the islands into a joint special economic zone under the United Nations.

Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu has made settlement a condition to providing economic aid. But even though six other major industrialized countries supported Japan’s claim to the islands in July, Tokyo must be careful not to erode its just claim to the islands with an offensively obvious brand of checkbook diplomacy.

It’s true that a sensible resolution would irritate unyielding political groups in both countries. But that should not prevent the forging of a new era in Soviet-Japanese relations.