Talk:Kuril Islands dispute

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Russia Portal
This page is within the scope of WikiProject Russia. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale.
??? This article has not yet received an importance rating on the assessment scale.
WikiProject International relations This article is within the scope of WikiProject International relations, an attempt to provide information in a consistent format for articles about international organizations, diplomats, international meetings, and relations between states.
If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
??? This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the importance scale.


Contents

[edit] Article title

  • It should be called a dispute instead of a conflict, since conflict sounds like a war or a battle and is more ambiguous. E.g. Vietnam conflict. Japan seeks a peaceful resolution only, while Russia's position seems to be to ignore it. --69.212.98.139 18:11, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Kuril Islands. Four islands, so plural, not singular. --69.212.98.139 18:11, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Done (by somebody) —Tokek 23:49, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article content

  • This article and the main Kuril islands article are short enough that there shouldn't be any problems merging this article into the main Kuril islands article. In either case, it seems like the topic of dispute already exists (and rightly so) in the main Kuril islands article. I don't see that changing, or why any mention of the dispute should be moved from the main article to this one. --69.212.98.139 18:11, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • The map could be colored to indicate the four islands in dispute. It's a pretty small area compared to all of the Kurile islands.--69.212.98.139 02:24, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Done - Nik42 06:08, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Northern Territories is a collective term for the name of the sub-region of the Kuril Islands that is in dispute. Naming the article after the location appears to be how every other disputed territory is handled (e.g. Kashmir, not Kashmir dispute; Gaza Strip, not Gaza Strip dispute; Liancourt Islands...). Furthermore, neither the articles Northern Areas nor Northern Territory found the necessity for a disambiguation page or a link to a disambiguation page, which seems to indicate the unimportance of keeping Northern Territories the location for a disambiguation on all three articles. — Tokek 23:49, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] *****VOTING SECTION*****

Addendum Please Read: Your votes are supposed to be cast above the discussion section. However, votes cast in the Discussion section will still be honored and tallied in the end. If you have been reading the discussion (please do, it is important), you will notice that there are now three proposed changes, which means you have four voting options. —Tokek 19:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

STRONGLY oppose this effort to recast an already existing discussion, which is a consensus against Northern territories. It would be preferable to acknowledge that consensus and close that discussion before opening a new one; and attempting to retroactively impose a format is doubly undesirable. Septentrionalis 19:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
Oppose reformatting, particularly in regards to "Southern Kuril Islands/South Kuril District", supporting the descriptive Southern Kuril Islands is not identical to supporting Russian administrative term South Kuril District Nik42
Added According to Apoivre's comment below, South Kuril District is not identical to the disputed islands (Iturup/Etorofu is outside it), in which case, South Kuril District would be incorrect Nik42 11:21, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
Update: More than five days have passed since the beginning of voting. The decision was keep - no change by majority concensus after more than five days of voting. —Tokek 22:22, 4 August 2005 (UTC)


  • Move to Northern Territories
    • Oppose (copy of vote from discussion section) ObsidianOrder 09:34, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose. Septentrionalis 23:07, 28 July 2005 (UTC) [moved from below.
    • Oppose (copy of vote from discussion section) 132.205.x.x 14:40, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose (copy of vote from discussion section) --Nik42 04:03, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose (copy of vote from discussion section) --Gene Nygaard 19:55, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose (copy of vote from discussion section) --apoivre 11:35, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Support Term used specifically to refer to subject location. —Tokek 18:57, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose Too ambiguous. Good friend100 18:38, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Move to South Kuril District (was: Move to Southern Kuril Islands)
    • Support (copy of vote from discussion section) --ObsidianOrder 09:34, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose (copy of vote from discussion section) --Gene Nygaard 19:55, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose (copy of vote from discussion section) --apoivre 11:35, 31 July 2005 (UTC) ADDED At least one island Japan keeps claiming, Iturup, lies outside of South Kuril District (see my contrib in the discussionn section) --apoivre 11:12, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose Septentrionalis 17:47, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Support Term used specifically to refer to subject location. —Tokek 18:57, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Weak Oppose South Kuril District refers specifically to the Russian administrative division, and as the controversy is over whether they have a legitimate right to set up such an administrative division, it would seem preferable to use a term like Southern Kuril Islands or merge with Kuril Islands. In addition, there is no article for other Districts of the Sakhalin Oblast Nik42 22:23, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
      • Added In addition, it appears that South Kuril District is not identical to the disputed islands, as the district seat of Kurilsky Region is on Iturup/Etorofu. Nik42 11:24, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge with Kuril Islands
    • Support (copy of vote from discussion section) --ObsidianOrder 09:34, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Strong Support (copy of vote from discussion section) --Nik42 04:03, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose (copy of vote from discussion section) --Gene Nygaard 19:55, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose (copy of vote from discussion section) --apoivre 11:35, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose Septentrionalis 17:47, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Support Both articles are reasonably small —Tokek 18:57, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep - no change
    • Support (copy of vote from discussion section) --Nik42 07:21, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Weak Oppose moving to South Kuril Islands or merging with Kuril Islands would be preferable, but current title is not completely unacceptable Nik42 22:23, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Support (copy of vote from discussion section) --132.205.x.x 14:40, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Support (copy of vote from discussion section) --Gene Nygaard 19:55, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Support (copy of vote from discussion section) --apoivre 11:35, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Support Subject of article, which is specifically about the dispute. If Kashmir were to be divided for length, one of the divisions might well be Kashmir dispute Septentrionalis 17:47, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Oppose Title format inconsistent with all other articles about disputed geographic locations —Tokek 18:57, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments
  • Oppose - while I sympathize with the Japanese view, the term Northern Territories is only used by Japan, not by Russia, who simply calls it the Southern Kuril Islands. Using Northern Territories would, therefore, be POV. Furthermore, in the examples given, Gaza Strip and Kashmir are used by both parties in the dispute, while Liancourt Rocks is a neutral name not used by either party (Dokdo in the case of Korea, Takeshima in the case of Japan). Nik42 02:08, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Edit: Support merger with Kuril Islands and disambiguating link from Northern Territories, Weak support for Southern Kurils (I don't think there's any need for a separate article, at least not at present), Oppose Northern Territories Nik42 04:03, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
    • I was unaware that the term Southern Kurile Islands was a commonly used term in Russia to refer to the disputed territories. If this is the case, we should mention this fact in the article. Also, it makes the current title all the more bad. Either Southern Kuril Islands or Northern Territories would be an improvement. When I was browsing List of islands#List of islands of Asia, I noticed that every article (except this one, which adds "dispute" at the end of the title) in the disputed islands section used the name of the location as the article title. In fact, this practice seemed to be common for disputed non-island territories as well. I didn't mean to suggest biasing the article title. I don't even know if a neutral title exists, or even if this article's current title is perfectly neutral, or if this topic is politicized enough that there are actually people who would be offended if we used one country's term for it over another's, or how adding "dispute" at the end makes the title somehow more neutral than without. What I meant to suggest was that simply using the name of the location would be a less awkward and more common naming method.—Tokek 05:38, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure if it is considered separately from the rest of the Kurils. If you know Russian, can you tell me what the difference between "Kurilsky", "Severo-Kurilsky", and "Yuzhno-Kurilsky" is? The page on Sakhalin Oblast lists those as three of the districts of that oblast.
        • Just checked via Altavista Babelfish. Severo-Kurilsky = North Kuril, Yuzhno-Kurilsky = South Kuril. I'm fairly sure that Yuzhno-Kurilsky corresponds to the "Northern Territories". For example, On February 1946, Sakhalin and the Kuriles became Russian territory. Until this time the Japanese have not recognized the lawfulness of the agreement governing the ownership of the southern Kuriles. [1] Nik42 07:45, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
          • I did not say that I know Russian. —Tokek 20:23, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
            • Which is why I said "if" you know Russian. Nik42 04:57, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
              • I do not know Russian. At first I thought you meant it with an "if you say you know Russian" sort of nuance. Also, my earlier post would suggest that I didn't know Russian. —Tokek 20:42, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
      • At any rate, I think it is an accurate name. Even the Japanese refer to it sometimes as "Southern Chishima", Chishima simply being the Japanese name for the entire chain. As the dispute rests on the status of a subset of the Kuril Islands, I think the current name is good. Nik42 07:21, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
        • Southern Chishima is not an option for a good title because usage of that term to refer to the disputed territories is rare to never. I refrained from bringing it up earlier to keep my comment shorter. —Tokek 20:23, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
      • Also, this page isn't so much about the islands themselves, as about the dispute around the islands. If the page on, say, Gaza Strip was primarily about the controversy surrounding it, rather than about the region itself, with the controversy merely being one section, then it would make sense to call it also Gaza Strip Dispute or something similar.
      • I suppose Southern Kuril Islands could work, as it's a NPOV name, as noted above Nik42 07:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
        • You say that since there exist the term "Southern Chishima Islands", "Southern Kuril Islands" is NPOV. I don't follow this logic.—Tokek 20:35, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
          • What I mean is, the island chain is called the Kurils in English and Russia, and Chishima in Japanese. Since the islands concerned are the southernmost islands of the chain, if a page separate from Kuril Islands is to be made, then "Southern Kurils" would be the least POV title. The bit about "Southern Chishima" was merely in reference to that being the Japanese equivalent of "Southern Kuril Islands", since Chishima=Kuril Islands Nik42 04:03, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose move to Northern Territories but support move instead to Southern Kuril Islands, or merge with Kuril Islands article. ObsidianOrder 09:34, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Merger with Kuril Islands is probably best Nik42 13:17, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
    • I support the merge option as well. Merger can reduce bloat by duplication of information and effort between here and there, however if in the future the Kuril Islands article gets too long and we end up splitting, then the merge effort would have been in vain. —Tokek 21:56, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
      • Neither page has grown much in the past year or so. If this should change, then we'll cross that bridge when we get to it Nik42 04:18, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Septentrionalis 23:07, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
  • OPPOSE, it's a Japanese-centric use of an ambiguous term. Several places in various countries are referred to as northern territories, hell Australia even has a Northern Territory, Australia. 132.205.3.20 14:40, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Please read what I've written above, the articles Wikipedia:Redirect and Wikipedia:Disambiguation (WP:D). From WP:D: "Disambiguation serves a single purpose: to let the reader choose among different pages that might reside under the same title. Do not disambiguate, or add a link to a disambiguation page, if there is no risk of confusion." You said: "Several places in various countries are referred to as northern territories" however there is only one such location listed in the Northern Territories diambiguation page, so if you know more, please feel free to add it. Note: please *DON'T* add titles that have the term Northeast in them. The "Northwest" article titles that you added have since been moved to Northwest. We can move the diambig page (if we want to keep that) to something like Northern Territory (disambiguation), or we can have a two-way link between the Australian territory. Being for a disambiguation page/link doesn't necessarily mean you have to be against moving to Northern Territories. —Tokek 22:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose ambiguous name. Gene Nygaard 19:55, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
  • OPPOSE both the moves and the merger. Kuril Islands is a geo page while the dispute page is - you guessed it - about the dispute. If Japan happens to have territorial claims to all of its neighbours that's no reason to merge all the location pages on the disputed areas with pages about the respective disputes. "Northern Territories" would be Japan-centric, "Southern Kurils" would be inaccurate: geographically, Southern Kurils are all the islands south of the Boussole Strait, from Chirpoy to Kunashir, not the 3 islands and one group of rocks Japan claims - these, technically, fall into the Lesser Kuril Ridge. --apoivre 11:35, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Thank you for contributing your knowledge on the term "Southern Kuril Islands" to this discussion. —Tokek 14:30, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
    • After a little google research, it appears that the Russian term is South Kuril District.
I can't find info on the exact boundaries of South Kuril district (appparently, it includes the Habomai, Shikotan and Kunashir, but I'm not sure), but at least one island Japan keeps claiming, Iturup, lies in Kuril District (the district seat, Kurilsk, is on Iturup). --apoivre 11:04, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Please consider checking out the voting section located above the discussion section. The format of this talk page was based off of a recommended template from the Wikipedia:Requested_moves page.—Tokek 20:53, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Map of Kurils

Anyone have a better map of the disputed islands? Magellan has a good one and a few other websites have a decent map. Can we use those? 131.38.214.9 01:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)D

Japan, as well as the United States, later claimed that the Yalta agreement did not apply to the Northern Territories since the Northern Territories were technically not a part of the Kuril Islands which is an obvious and easlily refutable lie.In fact ALL Japanese pre-war and first year'post-war maps show that Southern Curil islands were technically part of the administrative area different from Xokkaido district.Japan's enormous appetites are very well known by the countrie of Asia,say Okinawa is curently occupied illegally by Japan.Xokkaido island as well as many other 'japanese' territories originally belonged to now nearly exterminated Ainu peoples. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.254.230.199 (talk) 11:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Ainu claims

Whoever added this line: However, the claims of the indigenous Ainu people to the islands have gone largely ignored by the Powers. - Is this verifiable? Can you quote any source on Ainu "claims"? Or on the fact that these (alleged, I presume) claims have gone "largely" (huh?) unnoticed by "the Powers"?:apoivre 15:41, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Well I removed that line a while ago since the writer was being too vague, and the lack of informativeness gave it little value for keeping it. —Tokek 11:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure where that person actually got it from... but I have seen it mentioned many times in Ainu-related documents, noting how ironic it is that Japan and Russia are arguing over lands that "are historically and traditionally part of Ainu Mosir and thus belong rightfully to their stewards, the Ainu people". Ironically, the claims of the Ainu to that land could be said to give more credence to the Japanese claim. --Node 19:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Ironically, the claims of the Ainu to that land could be said to give more credence to the Japanese claim. - Ironically enough, as of the 2002 census, nobody in Kamchatka Oblast (which includes the Kurils) identified themselves as Ainu. Shall we take it as a sign that the Ainu claims in question must necessarily come from the Japanese side? --apoivre 01:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Language problem

This article seems to suffer from a perpetual influx of bad English contributions. Naturally, people who are interested in this subject tend to be of Russian or Japanese descent and tend to be non-native speakers of English. Maybe we should do extra work to keep track of these contributions and correct bad English when we can make sense of it, and/or we could just block anonymous IPs to discourage people who aren't serious about contributing to the English Wikipedia (e.g. non-native speakers) from editing it.—Tokek 11:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

While it's technically correct to say a Japanese national to be of Japanese descent and a Russian national to be of Russian descent, this kind of expression suggests these people have emigrated out of their countries and are settled elsewhere (implicitly the US). That's already a grating assumption. Now, it's one thing for you to complain about putting up with the bad English of non-native speakers, but I also don't appreciate the idea of putting up with a crappy article that's speculative or pilfered from tertiary English translated sources.--60.43.34.23 09:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Disputed islands claimed by Japan

Template:Disputed islands claimed by Japan (renamed Template:Territorial disputes involving Japan) has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --Endroit 16:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Major rewrite?

I'm tempted to rewrite the article a bit but would like to discuss a few things here first to prevent an edit war. The article as it is now seems pretty biased towards Japan - both in its choice which facts to include and which to omit and in the sequence the facts are introduced. The way it goes now is:

1. Ambiguity over the Treaty of San Francisco and the treaty of Shimoda (so far so good)

2. "Since the Soviet Union era, the occupation has been taught there that "the punishment to Japan" to rationalize the war trophy" (true?) - followed by a statement that "'there was practically no hostile activity between the USSR and Japan before the USSR renounced the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact and declared war on Japan (Operation August Storm) on August 8, 1945." (mostly true; mostly - as the article on the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact states that the USSR didn't violate the pact as it expired by then - see note 1). (Pretty convenient that the 1941 Neutrality pact is chosen here as a starting date and not the Japanese attacks of 1938 (Battle of Lake Khasan) or the clashes in 1939 (Soviet-Japanese Border War (1939)). As it is now, the reader is led to deduce that it's all about evil Russians clinging to old Soviet propaganda while the innocent Japan is... well, innocent)

3. Fast forward to 2005 - the European Parliament officially recommends Russia returns the islands (is it their business? should it rather be a footnote?). Evil Russia protests (of course)

4. As of 2006 (?): Evil Russia currently offers to return 6% of the disputed area if Japan reounces all the other claims. Almost as a sidenote, the 1956 declaration is mentioned

5. 2006: Evil Russia finds a Japanese vessel fishing near the disputed islands (read : in what should be Japan's territorial waters). The vessel "allegedly defied several orders to stop" so evil Russian killed a Japanese fisherman. The first fatality in 50 years. Minimal diplomatic fallout.

6. Ainu claims are introduced and dealt with in a single sentence that doesn't cite any sources. (Who exactly are those Ainus making the claims? What are the claims?)

All in all, nice spin

Now, what do we do with this?

Plan A: make it linear/chronologic - that is, the 1957 declaration should go after point 1 and be elaborated upon, including all the about-faces and the American interference as recalled by a Japanese diplomat (cited in this fascinating article [2] from The Japan Times), with Dulles threatening the US will annex Okinawa if the deal over Iturup and Kunashir is reached and so on?

Plan B: make it symmmetrical, with a series of subsections on Russian claims/Japanese claims, Russian propaganda/Japanese propaganda, official Japanese position/official Russian position, views within Russian/Japanese societies and so on?

Any thoughts? --apoivre 02:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Your points are well taken; but let's see what can be done about them in the present structure before you rewrite. Primarily this would mean including the 1930 incidents, which we should.
If we must rewrite, let's have a resume of Russo-Hapanese relations, I suppose since 1855, followed by claims and counter-claims I doubt the recent events are included to frame Russia; WP articles tend to pick up current news as it happens. A subsection on recent events might work. . Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not really sure the 1930s events are all that relevant - I only mentioned them to show how the article would look different depending on which starting point you choose (Japan attacked the USSR several times in the 30s, then the USSR waited till their neutrality pact expired and attacked Japan true to its obligations to the US vs innocent Japan didn't do anything bad till the evel Russkies backstabbed them in '45). Now any of these two POVs might be used to rationalize one or the other claim to the islands - but is Wikipedia a place to rationalize claims. What we should probably do is dwell more on legal basis, i.e., the 1957 declaration. Just my two cents: --apoivre 13:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
From the way you write it, it sounds like the 1930s events were very relevant. If so, I am all pro adding those events in the article. USSR renounced the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact and invaded Japan. This is a very crucial event in history that explains how it is now under Russian administration and not Japan's. Japanese people who argue for the return of these islands cite this event as the key reason why they believe Russian occupation is unjustified. Since this article is about the dispute, it seems like an important portion to keep.
  • Re 2 "punishment to Japan" bit: I don't know about the veracity of this claim. It could be true, or it could be false. If found to be true, though, I don't think it should be removed.
  • Re 3: I think people are interested in what the European Parliament has to say.
  • Re 4-5: What's was the problem with these sections? "Disputed" is a fairly standard NPOV word choice, too.
  • Re 6: IIRC I removed this portion before as it made no sense (Who made what claim? When? No explanation or link given). It had the citation needed tag appended to it for awhile, but since it seemed unlikely whoever added the sentence would come back and fix it, I removed it.
—Tokek 02:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Re1: So did the USSR renounce the pact or did they let it expire as stated elsewhere on Wikipedia (see my comment above)? Or is it all irrelevant and the article should dwell on purely legal matters?
"Re2: If it is true - add a link/quote a source, whatever. (I grew up in the Soviet Union and I don't remember ever hearing that line of reasoning. I believe the party line was "we control these islands because they are ours", not "because we took them from Japan to punish them").
  • Re 3-5: I'm not trying to prove whether these facts are true or not. It's all about presentation. See my original comment above. --apoivre 17:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Re 1: I don't see anything in the five year pact that expired at the time USSR denounced it on the third year.
  • Re 2: I agree with your view on this one. —Tokek 12:19, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • What's the status on the decision to rewrite the page? I notice that not much has happened since April. I'm interested in seeing the content updated. I generally see the same points listed by apoivre -- at the moment, the historical scope of the article is too narrow to depict the dispute accurately. Additionally, I think a section describing why each country considers the islands to be theirs is also needed to clearly explain the nature of the dispute. Lastly, any other motives for retaining the islands also need to be mentioned, for example, in the case of Russia, maintaining the enclosure of the Okhotsk Sea. Official positions of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of both countries need to be noted. Apoivre, are you still up for the re-write? If not, I can pitch in. Penkov 10:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Re 2 (the pact): actually, it is irrelevant, though often misunderstood. The treaty was to be prolonged after 5 years if neither party repudaiated after four. The Soviet Union repudiated (which actually meant that the treaty still stood for another year) but also announced that the treaty had lost its sense, since Japan as an ally of Germany was helping the German war effort. So they accused Japan of having violated the treaty. However, all that does not weigh up against the simple fact that the treaty was a passive neutrality treaty only. It meant that neither of the parties should join an attack by a third power on the other party. So, basically, it did mean that according to the treaty, Japan could not join the German attack on the Soviet Union, but nothing stopped the Soviet Union from joining the war between Japan and the Anglosaxon powers on the American-British side bacause Japan was the aggressor ibn that war (Article two: Should one of the Contracting Parties become the object of hostilities on the part of one or several third powers, the other Contracting Party will observe neutrality throughout the duration of the conflict.)
  • Re 3: this is just one of those European parliament resolutions that does not mean anything. Unfortunately, I cannot find out how the vote went on that one. There are examples of resolutions being adopted by eight votes to one - there is no quorum needed on these things. Of course, these things are sent to the EU commissioner on foreign relations who usually cannot do anything about or with it, because foreign relations is a matter for the states individually. Note that the EU parliament voted a similar resolution on Tibet somewhere in 1993. It is fun, it is silly and it is free of diplomatic consequences. How useful European parlaiment resolutions are, may be best illustrated by the European Parliament resolution on Gladio.
  • Re 6:[3]. The first sentence is clear enough, I suppose? Someone seems to try to use the Ainu to prove that the islands (and not only these islands) are rightfully Japanese, because the rightful owners were driven away by the Russians to Japan. At the same time, I've read a few times that the Ainu language has only recently died out on Sakhalin - a contradiction there. --Paul Pieniezny 14:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
I support the rewrite, it's pretty bias -Kain Nihil 00:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Occupation date

Recently, the article was edited in two places to stress September 1945 as the date when the occupation began. The problem is that sources differ - our article on the Kuril Islands says different: "In August 18–31, Soviet forces invaded the North and South Kurils". The suspicion is created that the Soviet Army occupied a major part of, but not all the islands. The Russian article on the Kuril islands even says explicitly "а в августе-сентябре оккупировал Южные Курилы".

It would be interesting to know, where that exact date of 20 September comes from. It is even in contradiction with what the Japanese association of inhabitants of the islands claims itself! [4]. "Thus since August 18 1945, three days after Japan's unconditional surrender, the Four Islands have been under the illegal occupation of the Soviet Union."


This is NOT fumbling over details. It does not take too much googling to find texts on the internet, which claim the Soviet Union occupied these islands "although they never fought Japan during World War II." There was fighting on the islands - according to our source on August Storm, there were ... 80,000 Japanese soldiers on the islands [5]. As for the Japanese surrender, the same American source gives 19 August (one day after the invasion of the Kurils began) as the starting date of cease-fire talks between Japan and the Soviet Union: "Concrete cease-fire negotiations with the Soviets opened on 19 August, only after the Imperial High Command had settled the issue of personal oaths." In fact, in this war, Japanese troops continued to fight until August 30th. And the Japanese Instrument of Surrender is of course from September 2nd. Our article about Surrender of Japan: "Japan's forces were still at war against the Soviets and Chinese, so managing their cease-fire and surrender was difficult. The Soviet Union continued to fight until early September, taking the Kuril Islands." It may have become customary in the West and in Japan to quote August 15th as the end of World War II, but apart from being culturally biased, in an article on a dispute we cannot use such arbitrary boundaries.

I have some other problems with the article, as it does not mention the Soviet Union's repudiation of Portsmouth nor the 1956 talks are mentioned: this actually means that the American intervention stopping Japan from accepting two islands (documented both in pro-Japanese and Russian sources: [[6]] [[7]] is not mentioned either. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 13:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] sourcing and structure

This article suffers from a general lack of sourcing when various historic facts and dates are cited. I hope that editors who worked on the article in the past, or maybe new ones with the relevant knowledge, will provide such sourcing. In particular, I think that more sources need to be cited in the "Background" section, e.g. to places where one can read texts of various treaties mentioned and possibly some news accounts.

I also found the structure of the "Background" section to be a bit perplexing, with its essentially reverse chronological order. Why start in 1951? Shouldn't that be preceded by a paragraph or two related to earlier history: which country and when owned/controlled which parts of the Kuril islands. In particular, it is unclear from the current text if during any period prior to 1945 Russia/USSR ever had control over the four disputed islands.

Otherwise it is rather hard for a non-expert reading the article for the first time to understand what the story is. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 11:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] signatory to the San Francisco treaty

I see that Wilderr has changed the sentence regarding the Soviet Union not being a signatory to the San Francisco treaty to read: "However, the Soviet Union choose not to be a signatory to the San Francisco Treaty, inasmuch as the Treaty do not define belonging of Kuril Islands and Sakhalin."

Wilderr, could you please comment on your edit here? As far as I understand, the Soviet Union was not a signatory to the San Francisco Treaty, period. Do you mean to say that the Soviet Union signed some other portion of that Treaty but not the Kuril Island/Sakhalin portion? Or do you mean to say that the Soviet Union did not sign the San Francisco Treaty because of the Kuril Island/Sakhalin provisions of the treaty? Either way, this sentence needs to be clarified, and also cleaned up for English (in its currrent form it is grammatically incorrect). Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 15:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

inasmuch as = because, so my phrase in "light version" equal this:
"USSR not signed the Treaty because the Treaty not defined the rightful owner of the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin"
//Wilderr (talk) 12:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, now the meaning is clear. I would certainly be in favor of adding something like: "USSR not signed the Treaty because the Treaty did not not define the rightful owner of the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin", but this only if a reliable source is provided to document this statement. (In fact, if verifiable, such info would also have to be added to the Treaty of San Francisco article itself). Could you give any references to news-articles, books, etc, which say that the Kuril Islands/Sakhalin issue was the reason why the Soviet Union did not sign the Treaty of San Francisco? Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 13:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I did some digging and looked up the archival editions of NYT from October 1951, when the San Francisco peace conference was taking place. There is quite a bit of coverage of the USSR's opposition to the treaty, before and after it was signed, but Kuril Islands and Sakhalin are barely mentioned. There was a lengthy official statement by Andrei Gromyko (who was the head of the Soviet delegation at the conference), made on Sept 8, 1951, detailing the Soviet Union's objections to the treaty. (The statement was published by the NYT on October 9, 1951, see the NYT electronic archive [8]; unfortunately, the access is not free and one has to pay $3.50 to access the NYT article electronically). Gromyko's statement is very lengthy (3483 words, according to the NYT count), and only a small portion of it deals with the Sakhalin/Kuril Islands issue. Most objections, particularly the main objections listed first in the statement, have to do with the USSR's assertions that the treaty does not prevent the rise of the Japanese militarism and contains no guarantees that it will not happen; that the Communist China was not invited to the confrence; that the Treaty is in effect a separate peace treaty not involving all main the powers that were at war with Japan; that the provisions of the previous international agreements such as the Pottsdam declaration are not followed; that the treaty sets up Japan as an American military base and draws Japan into an American-Japanese military coalition directed against the Soviet Union; that the Soviet Union was not properly consulted when the text of the treaty was being prepared; that other Asian countries, apart from China, that suffered in the war with Japan, such as India and Burma, were not participants in the peace conference; that the Treaty violates the rights of China to Taiwan; that several Japanese islands are ceded by the treaty to the United States; and other objections.

There statement does mention the Sakhalin/Kuril issue: "The Soviet delegation has already drawn the attention of the conference to the inadmissibility of the situation under which the draft peace treaty with Japan fails to state that Japan should recognize the sovereignty of the Soviet Union over the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. The draft is in flagrant contradiction with the obligations assumed by the United States and great Britain with regard to these territories under the Yalta Agreement".

Given how small a portion of the entire statement this passage is, and given that it occurs at the very end of a long list of reasons justifying the Soviet opposition to the treaty, it is not possible (at least not based on the text of Gromyko's statement) to say that the Sakhalin/Kuril issue was "the reason" or "the main reason" why the Soviet Union did not sign the treaty or that the soviet Union did not sign the treaty "because of" this issue.

It is justified, based on Gromyko's statement, to say that the Sakhalin/Kuril issue "was among the many reasons" why the Soviet Union did not sign the treaty. Of course, it is possible that something else was going on behind the scenes and that the Sakhalin/Kuril was a more important part of the Soviet opposition to the treaty than Gromyko's statement indicates. But one would have to find some historical evidence for these, perhaps discussed in books and articles by various historians, etc.

Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 16:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanx for big job! I havn't practice in english, so writing for me its sloooow work.
Yes, was few prominent reasons and some petty but not "the many", because the part of a small reasons was arised from a big reasons. Most importants is Islands ownership, China's absence, Okinawa's naval base. But here is article about Islands and we need not go into details. I think it possible to say here just this: "One of the USSR's refusals to append signature - the Treaty did not define the rightful owner of the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin". And put the reference what other reasons enumerated in "the Treaty 1951" and "the Treaty 1956" articles. Do you agree with this formula?
I have some sources about this subject (Russian-Japanese relationship), but... all of them on Russian :))) Nevertheless I know all points of view and would like to see this article without biassed one-sided positions. Just and only facts. // Wilderr (talk) 23:34, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Could you please give some links to the Russian sources you mentioned? I am from Russia myself, so it would not be a problem for me to read them, even we cannot cite them directly in the article. Regarding your suggestion, I'd like to do a bit more research and to get more information before adding a sentence of the type you propose to the article. There is some mystery and an apparent contradiction here that I would like to resolve or at least to understand better. On on hand, Gromyko's statement says that one of the reasons USSR opposed the draft version of the treaty was that that draft version did not include explicit recognition by Japan " of the sovereignty of the Soviet Union over the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands". On the other hand, when I look at the text of the treaty as it was actually signed, Article 2(c) says[9]: "Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 5 September 1905".
So, unless I am missing something, it appears that the final text of the treaty did address the concern about the status of Kurils/Sakhalin raised in Gromyko's statement exactly in the way the USSR wanted. It sounds to me like the preliminary draft version of the treaty that Gromyko was talking about was changed to accomodate some of the Soviet concerns, the Kuril/Sakhalin issue in particular. I am not sure if that is exactly what happened but that is what it looks like. If that is the case, it would not be correct to say that the Kuril/Sakhalin issue was among the reasons why the USSR did not sign the treaty (since the final text of the treaty does appear to address this issue exactly in the way the USSR wanted).
But, as I said, I may be missing something and I would like to find out more and to understand better what exactly happened. I do think that the article Treaty of San Francisco needs to include a section discussing the Soviet opposition to the treaty. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 00:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I did a bit more digging and it seems that I was incorrect. The USSR's objection in relation to the Kuril/Sakhalin issues seems to have been regarding the specific language used in the San Francisco Treaty. While article 2(c) of the treaty does say that "Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 5 September 1905", the treaty does not explicitly say that Japan renounces these rights in favor of the Soviet Union and that Japan recognizes the sovereignty of the Soviet Union over these islands. This looks like a language quabble to me. (In whose else's favor would Japan be renouncing its claim over these territories?). Nevertheless, it appears that it was the absence of an explicit mention of the Soviet sovereignty over the islands in the text of the San Francisco treaty that the Soviet Union was objecting to. This interpretation is supported by anothe New York Times article, from its September 4, 1951 issue, " Text of Dulles Reply to the Soviet Charges Against Japanese Peace Treaty; THE PRESIDENT ARRIVING TO OPEN PEACE CONFERENCE"[10]. The article contains point-by-point replies by Dulles to the Soviet objections to the draft treaty. The article is quite long (2042 words), but it does have several paragraphs dealing with the Kuril/Sakhalin issue. Here is an exact quote:
"Charge: [...] Likewise, the Treaty States that Southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands are to be detached from Japan but does not state, as previously promised by the United States, that these territories should be handed over to the Soviet Union.
Reply: [...] As regards South Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, the treaty carries out the provisions of the Potsdam surrender terms, the only agreement by which Japan and the Allied powers as a whole are bound. So long as other governments have rights under the Yalta Agreement which the Soviet Union has not fulfilled, there is at least question as to whether the Soviet Union can, "with clean hands", demand the fulfillment of the parts of that agreement it likes".
This makes the nature of the USSR's objection in relation to the Kuril/Sakhalin provisions of the treaty more clear. I believe that some mention of this should be included in the article, but I would have to think about precise wording to be used.
The NYT article elucidates another interesting point. Apparently there was a slight difference in language used in the Potsdam agreement and in the Yalta agreement regarding Sakhalin/Kurils. Apparently the Yalta text explicitly said that the territories were to be handed over to the Soviet Union, while the Potsdam text used more implicit language and only said that Japan will renounce all rights to these territories. It appears that the U.S. decided to use the less explicit language of the Potsdam text in the San Francisco treaty and that is what the Soviet Union was objecting to. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 01:52, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • 1. "In whose else's favor would Japan be renouncing its claim over these territories?"
After WW2 USA asked USSR to cede one of Kuril Islands at the middle of range to USA's property. It was almost ultimatum. But Stalin override the claim and USA do not recall the claim. I think it was around 1948 - I don't remember exactly.
  • 2. "...the Yalta Agreement which the Soviet Union has not fulfilled"
What does it mean? Exactly. Which part of the Yalta Agreement was not fulfilled?
  • 3. "In accordance with Declaration the state of war was ceased and was re-established diplomatics and consulars relations."
I insist onto this formula because its diplomatic language.
PS please, don't write so much. this place is not a forum. if you need you can use my page // Wilderr (talk) 03:59, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "...the Yalta Agreement which the Soviet Union has not fulfilled", this was a direct quote from Dulles' statement. I don't know exactly what he meant.

Regarding your proposed formulation "In accordance with Declaration the state of war was ceased and was re-established diplomatics and consulars relations.", unfortunately, the second part of it is really bad English and is grammatically incorrect.

"In accordance with the Declaration the state of war between the Soviet Union and Japan was ceased and normal diplomatic and consulars relations were re-established" would at least be correct English, but not quite sufficient since it needs to be clear that we are talking about ending the state of war that existed since World War II.

Regarding my writing too much, you may have a point, but this is a complicated historical matter and I am not writing to express my views but rather to try to ascertain the facts. After reading [11], I see that the matter was much more complicated than I thought. I think that the entire article Kuril Islands dispute needs a fairly comprehensive rewrite, to include more detailed history of the dispute, including more detailed info about Yalta and Potsdam agreements. Nsk92 (talk) 08:46, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Major rewrite

I just did a fairly major rewrite of the article.

I substantially extended the historical background section, divided it into several subsections arranged the material largely in chronological order.

I also added material regarding the dispute as to whether or not the Northern Territories are a part of the Kuril Islands, since this is a crucial part of the Kuril Island dispute that was not reflected in the prior version of the article. I think that more sources regarding this issue should be added, especially since there is also a dispute about when exactly Japan first put forward the claim that Etorofu and Kunashiri islands are not a part of the Kurils and are thus not covered by the Treaty of San Francisco.

Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 02:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)