Japan’s Leader Says Yeltsin Visit Will Be Test for G-7 Partnership

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s visit to Japan beginning Sept. 13 will test whether Russia can become a “partner” of the Group of Seven advanced industrialized democracies, Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa declared here Sunday.

Speaking to a seminar of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Miyazawa said Japan, the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, France and Italy agreed at the Munich summit in July that “we want Russia to be our partner.”

“That was the basic thinking of the political declaration” at Munich, Miyazawa said, adding that to build that kind of relationship, Moscow must “close the books on Stalinism by resolving the northern territories issue.”

He was referring to Japan’s claim to four islands off its northern coast that were seized by the former Soviet Union after the end of World War II and continue to be held by Russia. Tokyo’s claim was supported by Japan’s six G-7 partners, Miyazawa said.

“Those islands have never belonged to anyone except Japan. If Yeltsin can agree to that point, we can be flexible (about the timing of their return). There are many ways to deal with the issue,” Miyazawa said.

Such an agreement by Yeltsin, the prime minister said, would open the door to “large-scale aid” to Russia from Japan. “But we can’t give large-scale aid, which would come from tax money, without the people’s support,” he said.

Earlier at the seminar, Chairman Koko Sato of the ruling party’s general affairs bureau, who had just returned from a trip to two of the islands at issue, predicted that pressure from hard-liners in Moscow will keep Yeltsin from recognizing Japan’s sovereignty over the islands. But he said the Russian islanders themselves were “beginning to lend an ear” to Japan’s offers.

Sato said he had told the islanders that Japan is willing to wait for “three to five years” for the return of the two smaller territories, Shikotan and the Habomai islets, and “even 10 or 15 years” for the reversion of Etorofu and Kunashiri after Moscow acknowledges Japanese sovereignty.

Japan also will guarantee the islanders’ residence rights, either as Japanese or Russian citizens, and extend the benefits of Japan’s social welfare and medical insurance to them, he said.

“Or, Japan will cooperate to provide funds to build typical Russian middle-class housing for those who wish to move,” he added.

“The islanders listened constructively to our proposals,” Sato said. “But Moscow doesn’t listen. There, they say Yeltsin wouldn’t last in office for half a year if he agreed to give back the islands.”