HARSH CLIMATE, FEW PEOPLE
The Soviet Union took the strategically located volcanic archipelago north of Hokkaido in the final days of World War II, and has maintained a military presence there ever since.
In 2010, then president Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian leader to visit the disputed territory. Medvedev also went there several times subsequently as prime minister.
The four contested isles are part of the volcanic Kuril archipelago, which runs in a broad arc from Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula down to Japan’s main northern island Hokkaido.
The Soviet Union only declared war on Japan on Aug 8, 1945, after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and six days before the end of the conflict.
The islands’ names are similar in both countries – Kunashir, Habomai, Shikotan and Iturup in Russian, while in Japanese they are known as Kunashiri, Habomai, Shikotan and Etorofu.
Their population of about 20,000 Russian citizens lives in a harsh climate, but the islands have mineral deposits including gold and silver, and rich fishing grounds.
After the islands were occupied in 1945, Moscow deported their Japanese population of about 17,000 people.
Thereafter, the islands acquired strategic importance, providing air and sea bases during the Cold War as the Soviet Union confronted the United States and its closest ally in the Pacific, Japan.
On several occasions, it appeared that off-and-on talks between Tokyo and Moscow were making progress and in 1956, when diplomatic relations were established, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev suggested two of the disputed islands might be returned under a peace treaty.
Although the talks resumed after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, no progress has been made.
