Tokyo keeps Russia sanctions alongside economic project

TOKYO: Japan will adopt a two-prong policy on Russia of maintaining sanctions in line with the Group of Seven’s protest against the seizure of Crimea, while also helping to boost the Russian economy, government sources said.

Japan will explain to other G7 countries the need for the policy both to settle bilateral issues and allay growing concerns that Tokyo could withdraw from the anti-Russia coalition over the Crimea annexation, the sources said.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government believes in improving ties with Russia but that this does not preclude staying tough on the Crimea issue, the sources said.

Mr Abe, as the chairman of the G7 summit in June, adopted a statement condemning Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“We cannot stop condemning Russia unless Crimea’s sovereignty returns to Ukraine,” one of the sources said. Another said the need to continue with the current sanction regimes “is likely to be a topic” at next year’s G7 summit in Italy.

But Mr Abe will make good on a recent agreement with President Vladimir Putin to provide a ¥300 billion (US$2.6 billion) package to help boost the Russian economy. The leaders reached the agreement during the Dec 15-16 summit in Japan.

Japan could help Russian corporations that are designated under sanctions imposed by other countries in connection with the Crimea issue and Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft, which is covered by the Tokyo-Moscow package, might be one such company, the sources said.

In reaction to the Crimea annexation the G7, which groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, as well as the European Union took various punitive actions against Russia. On a bilateral basis Japan has suspended inter-government negotiations on relaxing conditions for visa issuance and limited imports of products from Crimea.

Japan has asked Russia to settle the decades-old dispute over Japan’s claim to Russian-held islands off Hokkaido to sign a post-World War II peace treaty. Russia has shown few signs of budging over the sovereignty of the islands former Soviet troops seized after Japan’s surrender in the war in 1945.