vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #166 / Business / Reading article...

A Japanese delegation raised hackles in Sakhalin recently when visiting officials said they would not help develop the Kuril Islands until the archipelago's fate is resolved.

During a meeting of the Russian-Japanese Commission for Trade and Economic Issues in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, high-ranking Japanese officials refused to discuss visa exchanges between the islands because the project would mean that Japan accepts the islands belong to Russia, said Japan's consul general to Khabarovsk, Toshimitsu Mori.

The Kuril Islands are claimed by Japan, but have been occupied by Russia since 1945.

"We will wait to discuss these sort of things until an agreement between Russia and Japan is signed," Mori said. Meetings to resolve the issue are scheduled for later this month.

The stance angered some Sakhalin officials, who did not see why the dispute should obstruct economic cooperation. "In my opinion, our neighbors presented the territorial question too often," said Sakhalin Oblast Gov. Igor Farkhutdinov. "They connect economic cooperation with the solution of the so-called territorial problem. I cannot agree with such a point of view."

The dispute has been a major stumbling block in relations between the two countries. Russian warships fired on Japanese fishermen periodically in 1997 near the islands, and neither wants to let go of the land.

Still, Japanese businessmen at the meeting discussed other projects taking place throughout the Far East, including developing Sakhalin's extensive oil reserves.

Japanese officials also said the meeting was useful because it got both countries discussing economic issues that will continue to surface in diplomatic talks between President Yeltsin and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

"We'd like to have more honest ties with each other," Mori said. "And we achieved a much better understanding on economic development from these meetings."

But concrete projects were sparse at the meeting, mostly for reasons that have nothing to do with territorial disputes.

"The Japanese did express interest," said Sakhalin's Ministry for Foreign Economic Relations branch head, Victor Spassky. "But they are concerned that projects are not far enough along, and government guarantees, as well as a proper legislative base, are inadequate."