Participation in the program by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, which gives foreign journalists an opportunity to experience unrestricted sight visits and make reports, allowed me to have more observations and deeper acquaintance with many issues. This time, my observations were far on a different level than ten years ago, when I visited Japan and unlocked this island-country my own way and left in my notes.

Mongolia is a post-communist country. From our childhood, we used to hear stories about border disputes related to Japan, including those related to the Kuril Islands. The linear radio that was available in every family used to broadcast news about the Kuril Islands located between Russia and Japan. However, the information was provided strictly by the Russian side. By being involved in this program, I was able to hear for the first time explanations on this issue, which we used to hear as children, by the Japanese.

Visit to Hokkaido and acquaintance with the policy implemented in peripheral territories left a deep impression. In my notes I wrote “At the Hokkaido prefectural administration, there is the Northern Regional Policy Center. The Kuril Islands, as we call, consist of 56 islands with a total area of 10,502.2 square kilometers, four out of which are disputed between Russia and Japan. Two of them are large, and two are small. All together they make 5,036 square kilometers, which is almost half of the total islands’ territory. Islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai that lie closest to Hokkaido have been disputed by the two countries for 70 years. In general, these territories are homeland for the Ainu people. The Ainu are the native citizens. The word Kuril is an Ainu word. Hokkaido Island natives are also Ainu. They say that the word Sapporo originates from Ainu as well.

It seems that discovery by the two countries of the islands closest to their own respective territories and giving them significance started in the end of 1600s – beginning of 1700s. Today, Ainu people live both on Kuril Islands under Russian authority and Hokkaido. For hundreds of years these people have lived on their respective islands, but the situation changed since WWII. According to the history, although sides concluded several agreements long before the war, they failed to finalize the demarcation process. The Japanese call these four islands “Northern Territories”. It was the time when Japan having lost the war and borne the blame by the world had to agree with all demands by other countries. As they say, they even built us the “Gobi” factory along with some other facilities as a war reparation. At that time, while signing the instrument of surrender prepared by the Allied forces, they acknowledged that the Kuril Islands are not under their authority. On the other hand, the fact that the Russians did not sign the instrument of surrender contains a gist that they did not recognize the agreement. At the same time, the Japanese argued by saying that “the four islands where they lived for generations were not included in the Kuril Islands as the islands indigenously served as their northern boundary.” In those days, 17 thousand Japanese nationals lived on these four islands while there were no Russians at all. By 1949, the Russians who took over the islands in 1946, drove away all Japanese nationals, and boundary disputes between the two countries have continued ever since. However, we can say that some progress has been achieved as a result of mutual dialogues. Citizens who used to live on those islands, as well as their children are allowed to visit their native lands without a visa, while programs for visiting ancestors’ tombs and bilateral human exchange events are being implemented regularly. At the same time, this is an opportunity for the Russian nationals living on the islands to travel free of visa to receive medical and educational services. Frankly speaking, for residents of the Far East living thousands of miles from Moscow, the border of highly developed Japan is located only a few kilometers away. During the meeting between Russian President V. Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Sh. Abe last December, there might have been expectations among the Japanese for a positive result. However, there were rumors that after the meeting, citizens accused Sh. Abe for failing to receive a positive reply and being excessively meek. International observers considered that the fact of agreeing to cooperate in the economic field is a huge step forward, and had come up with a presumption that dialogues on economy may further lead the Russians to giving away the four islands to the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Japanese still have no clear presumption on this issue, and kept giving the same polite, but vague answer that “at least we have agreed to collaborate in the field of economy”. While reviewing the international news for the last week, I saw news saying that the Russians consider possible to develop the Kuril Islands by themselves without external assistance, which may mean that the expectations by the Japanese could again end up in a deadlock. Who knows? This is my personal assumption that this could be true since such a statement was made by the Russians who once were willing to collaborate.”

In general, despite the fact that it is located between two great neighbors - Russia and China - my country has resolved its border issues quite a long time ago and, therefore, we have no border disputes. That is the reason the issues of border disputes related to Japan is of particular interest for us, and for this reason I decided to make an exceptional report. As Mongolia is a landlocked country, we may not fully understand maritime boundary disputes. Meanwhile, the Japanese face a number of difficulties, starting with issues with PRC, Republic of Korea or the above mentioned dispute over the Kuril Islands.

In addition, I wrote serial articles that include the many things I saw during the program activities. This program is quite fascinating as it provides detailed implementation of the journalist’s plans and anticipations of seeing and exploring. For an individual journalist, there are things that are not so easy to accomplish, like making appointments or solving organizational matters. Therefore, it is my strong wish that this program, which makes everything so easy and gives various opportunities, continues in the future allowing journalists from every corner of the world acquaint with the country of the rising sun.

*Original article is in Mongolian