South Kuril Islands serve large-capacity vessels

VLADIVOSTOK, February 6 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia's South Kuril Islands
started serving large-capacity vessels on Sunday. A new pier constructed
at Kunashir welcomes vessels, both passenger and cargo ones, with a
sea-gauge of up to 6.5 meters.
On Saturday, a passenger vessel, the Igor Fakhrutdinov, of 4,575 tons'
displacement was the first to try the new pier in a test regime. On
Sunday, it left for Kurilsk city on the Iturup Island.
The construction of the new pier is the first stage of the pier
complex in the framework of the federal special program of social and
economic development of the Kuril Islands for 2007-2015. The second stage,
the sea station, is due by the year end.
The Kuril Islands dispute, also known as the Northern Territories
dispute, is a dispute between Japan and Russia over sovereignty over the
South Kuril Islands. The disputed islands, which were occupied by Soviet
forces during the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation at the end of
World War II, are under Russian administration as South Kuril District of
the Sakhalin Oblast, but are claimed by Japan, which refers to them as the
Northern Territories, being part of the Nemuro Sub-prefecture of Hokkaido
Prefecture.
The San Francisco Peace Treaty between the Allied Powers and Japan
from 1951 states that Japan must give up all claims to the Kuril Islands,
but it also does not recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over the
Kuril Islands. Furthermore, Japan currently claims that at least some of
the disputed islands are not a part of the Kuril Islands, and thus are not
covered by the treaty. Russia maintains that the Soviet Union's
sovereignty over the islands was recognized following agreements at the
end of the Second World War. However, Japan has disputed this claim. The
disputed islands are: Iturup (Etorofu) Island, Kunashir (Kunashiri)
Island, Shikotan Island, Habomai rocks (Habomai Islands). Russia has said
it is open to a negotiated solution to the island dispute while declaring
that the legality of its own claim to the islands is not open to question.
In other words, Japan would first have to recognize Russia's right to the
islands and then try to acquire some or all of them through negotiations.