This wording was included in the government's handbook on foreign policy.
Japan will now call the southern Kuril Islands “Japan's ancestral territory under illegal occupation.” This was reported by the publication “Kyodo Tsusin”. This wording was officially included in the government's Blue Book of Diplomacy.
Recall that the southern Kuril Islands – the territory of Japan, which in 1945 was occupied by the Soviet Union. The Japanese were forcibly evicted from there. As a result of the Soviet-Japanese war, Russia, as the successor to the Soviet Union, and Japan did not sign a peace treaty.
Today, Japan claims four southern islands of the Kuril ridge: Iturup, Shikotan, Kunashir and Habomai. Since 2011, these territories have been called the “ancestral lands” of the country. Now the name has been changed due to Russia's aggression against Ukraine, Kyodo Tsusin writes.
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Earlier, the Russian Federation said it was suspending work on a peace treaty with Japan and abolishing visa-free travel for the Japanese in its occupied South Kuril Islands due to “unfriendly actions of the country” (Japan imposed sanctions against Russia after a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine). Japan opposed the decision.
