“The Kuril Islands will actively develop, and at the same time their strategic role will grow, including the deployment of new weapons there,” Medvedev said.
Thus, he responded to Kishida’s statement that Tokyo has plans to conclude a peace treaty with Moscow “after the settlement of the Kuril Islands dispute.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov previously gave an interview in which he said that Russia does not have any territorial disputes with NATO countries, including that all issues with Japan are closed.
Russian authorities have repeatedly spoken about the indisputability of Russian sovereignty over the Kuril Islands. As noted in the Kremlin, there are currently no prospects for negotiations on a peace treaty with Japan. According to Dmitry Peskov, Japan has actively joined the camp of unfriendly states.
At the same time, the Japanese side in the Blue Book on Japanese Diplomacy for 2023 used the wording about “illegal occupation of the northern territories.” In response to this, Moscow recalled that Russia does not accept such a formulation of the issue and such formulations, because the Kuril Islands are an integral part of the Russian Federation.