Former senior Liberal Democratic Party politician Muneo Suzuki is in disgrace for alleged improper dealings. But Foreign Ministry efforts to blacken his name further by selectively revealing details of his attempts to change the ministry's hardline Northern Territories policy go too far.
The hardline policy has long said that in exchange for better relations with Japan Moscow must return all four of the island territories to the east of Hokkaido, which Soviet forces occupied with full Allied approval in 1945.
In other words, Moscow must return not only the Habomai island group and Shikotan, which before 1945 were administratively part of Hokkaido, but also the much larger territories of Etorofu and Kunashiri, which are part of the Kurile Islands archipelago to which Japan clearly renounced all right, claim and title under Article 2(c) of its 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty with the Allies.