US will not deploy troops in South Kurils if given to Japan
The US does not intend to deploy troops on the southern Kuril islands if Russia gives them back to Japan, Lieutenant General Jerry Martinez, Commander of the US Forces in Japan, said in a press conference.
“At this stage the US has no plans to deploy troops there,” Martinez said.
On January 5, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe said that the Japan-Russia peace treaty negotiations had reached a “decisive moment”. He noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin also wants to put an end to the peace treaty problem.
Later, Abe reportedly said that he swore on his father’s grave to do everything in his power to ensure that a peace treaty is signed. The newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported that, in addition to a peace treaty, Tokyo intends to propose an agreement with Moscow in which it will waive its demands for compensation for Russia’s occupation of the islands.
For more than 70 years, Russia and Japan have not had a peace treaty due to the dispute surrounding the Kuril islands.