Last month I had an opportunity to visit Kunashiri and Etorofu Islands -- two of the four Russian-occupied islands claimed by Japan -- under a visa-free exchange program. It was my second trip to the Northern Territories, which consist of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and Habomai Islands. On my first trip to the area last year I visited Shikotan and Etorofu. I want to discuss the significance -- and the limitations -- of the four-island exchange program.
An agreement on no-visa exchanges between Japan and the Northern Territories was signed in 1991 during a visit here by then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. In a way, the agreement was a concession by the Gorbachev administration that, its grip on power slipping, could not take any decisive action toward handing over the islands.
A Japan-Soviet joint communique recognized the existence of a territorial dispute between the two sides and mentioned the four islands as territories subject to negotiation. So, depending on how the negotiations develop, the islands may eventually revert to Japanese sovereignty.