The persistent desire of Japanese politicians to seize the four southern Kuril Islands is well known. During the "late Yeltsin" period, the Japanese side relied mainly on his promise to conclude a "peace treaty" with Japan no later than 2000 - a promise made to Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto during the Krasnoyarsk "meeting without ties" in November 1997 and later repeatedly confirmed by the Russian side. Tokyo assumed that the hitherto absent Russian-Japanese "peace treaty" would soon be approved by the Russian president and signed on Japanese terms, that is, on the basis of the Kremlin's concessions to Japanese territorial demands and the transfer of four Kuril Islands to Japan. The basis for such assumptions was given to the Japanese by some vague statements made by Boris Yeltsin in private conversations, first with Hashimoto, and then with his successor Keizo Obuchi.

Boris Yeltsin's resignation on the eve of 2000 shocked Japanese politicians and called into question their hopes for a quick resolution of the dispute with Russia in their favor. For some time they were at a loss, and the first months of 2000 were spent in Tokyo under the sign of finding out what position Vladimir Putin would take.

At first, Putin's statements did not show any desire to change or even reject Yeltsin's course towards Japan. This was evidenced, in particular, by his written responses to questions from the Asahi newspaper published in early September 2000.1 Nor did they deny Moscow's willingness to be guided in negotiations with the Japanese by Yeltsin's promise to sign the treaty during the coming year 2000. But the ambiguity in Putin's position on the issue of deadlines for the end of negotiations and the signing of the long-awaited treaty caused concern among the Japanese and prompted them to insist on his early arrival in Japan in the first weeks of the new Russian president's stay in power in order to finally resolve the territorial dispute between the two countries.

However, the sudden death of Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who played a leading role in the territorial dispute with Moscow in those days, forced the Japanese side to suspend the resumption of high - level Russian-Japanese negotiations for a while. Several months passed before the new Japanese Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori, appealed to Moscow to invite Putin to visit Japan to complete negotiations on a Russian-Japanese "peace treaty." It is noteworthy, however, that Mori, like his predecessor Keizo Obuchi, in his statements addressed to the Japanese public, repeatedly emphasized the firm intention of the Japanese side to get all four disputed Kuril Islands as a result of the conclusion of a "peace treaty" with Russia. The maximum "concessions" that the head of the Japanese government was ready to make seemed to be seen by the Japanese press and diplomats only in refusing to demand the immediate, momentary transfer of all four disputed islands into Japanese hands at once. It was assumed that at first, after the signing of the treaty, the Japanese would take possession of two islands (Shikotan and Habo-mai), and the other two largest islands-Kunashir and Iturup-would pass into Japanese hands later, after some time ² .

Official Moscow did not comment on such speculations.

During his first official visit to Japan on 3-5 September 2000. Putin saw his main task, as both our and the Japanese press noted, in discussing the prospects for the maximum expansion of Russian - Japanese economic cooperation, the scale of which remains more than modest compared to Japan's cooperation with a number of other countries. According to Putin's own information, given in his speech to Japanese businessmen on September 5, 2000, the Russian-Japanese trade turnover in 1999 amounted to less than $ 5 billion. ³ Against the background of Japan's trade turnover with the United States in the same year in the amount of $ 222 billion and with China in the amount of $ 75 billion, ⁴ the above figure looks minuscule.

Therefore, it was quite natural for Putin to use the Tokyo "summit" in order to bring Russian - Japanese economic relations out of their current state as soon as possible and give them a positive dynamic. Several programs for expanding economic cooperation between the two countries were prepared in Moscow, focusing on plans for large-scale supplies of Russian electricity to Japan. The most ambitious of the prepared plans contained the idea of unprecedented construction within the framework of the export program of RAO UES

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Russia" giant energy bridge "Russia-Japan". The project was aimed at building a large thermal power plant on Sakhalin, running on local gas, and laying four underwater cables through the La Perouse Strait to the Japanese island of Hokkaido for the subsequent transfer of Russian electricity in the amount of 25.5 billion kilowatt-hours per year to Hokkaido and central Japan. Apparently, the leading role in the development of this plan was played by the head of RAO UES A. Chubais, who even managed to sign a protocol of intent with Marubeni during his stay in Tokyo during the September summit ^.5

However, the projects of economic cooperation between the two countries brought by Putin to Tokyo were met with a cool reception. They also included the idea of building a large nuclear power plant in the Far East, some of which would be supplied to Japan, and the project of joint use of the Trans-Siberian railway by both countries, which provides for the construction of tunnels connecting Sakhalin with the island of Hokkaido and with the Russian mainland ^.6 Japanese businessmen are afraid of the unenviable state of economic life in Primorye and other Far Eastern regions of our country.

In an effort to focus his talks with Mori on the idea of Russian-Japanese cooperation in developing the energy resources of Siberia and the Far East, Putin followed the well-trodden path of his predecessor, who repeatedly tried, but failed, to involve Japan in joint economic activities on the territory of our country, with the expectation of receiving significant Japanese loans and loans. investments. This idea was reflected, as is well known, in the so-called "Yeltsin-Hashimoto Plan", and this time political commentators of both countries began to refer to the conversations of the leaders of both countries on the same topic as the "Putin-Mori Plan" ⁷ .

During the September "summit", the Japanese side, as before, verbally supported the idea of developing economic cooperation between the two countries and expressed readiness to sign various documents declaring their respective intentions without any objections. But at the same time, Japanese diplomats did not attach much importance to such declarations, because the decisive role in the country's economic affairs is played in Japan not by politicians, but by businessmen who have a fairly complete understanding of the most difficult situation of the economy of the Far Eastern region of our country. Remaining, as they say, "on its own mind", the Japanese side treated the joint declarations on Russian-Japanese economic cooperation only as a means of further "softening" Russia's position in the territorial dispute with Japan. And it is no coincidence that during the days of the Russian-Japanese "summit", the press of both countries published a statement by Hiroshi Kimura, one of the most famous Japanese experts in Russian studies, which negated the real significance of the agreements signed by the leaders of the two countries on the development of their economic cooperation. "These agreements are declarative," Kimura said, " they allow Japan to pretend that it is interested in economic cooperation with Russia. However, their goal is not to interrupt the dialogue on the territorial issue. " ⁸

Indeed, in their statements about their readiness to expand economic contacts with Russia, the Japanese ruling circles pursue completely different goals than the Russian leaders. This is especially clear from the talk about "joint economic development" of the Southern Kuril Islands, the idea of which was proposed to the Japanese by the Russian Foreign Ministry in the second half of the 90s. The Japanese ruling circles saw this idea as a new and at the same time shortest way to the actual possession of the islands. And they do not hesitate to state this today in their propaganda publications. Thus, in the book "Milestones on the way to concluding a peace treaty between Japan and Russia" addressed to the Russian public, published in the summer of 2000 in Moscow in Russian at Japanese expense, the following is written: "... joint Japanese-Russian economic development of the Northern Territories will be carried out in such a way that the Russian side will provide land and cheap labor, and then - everything else: capital investment, equipment, technology, and the market. As a result of joint economic development under the leadership of Japan and due to the increase in its economic power, the northern islands of Habomai, Shikotan, Kunashir and Iturup gradually cease to differ from the territory of Japan. Then, at a certain point, these islands become Japanese territory, and they are returned to Japan both legally and formally. " ⁹

As expected, the main stumbling block at the September talks between Putin and Mori was the Japanese side's promotion of illegal territorial claims to Russia. In fact, these claims did not contain anything new: as it was repeatedly in the past, we were again talking about the four southern Kuril Islands. Clinging to Yeltsin's promise to sign a "peace treaty" with Japan no later than 2000. Mori and his aides suggested that Putin immediately agree to cede the four islands to Japan on the terms previously proposed to Yeltsin by Japanese Prime Minister Ryu-taro Hashimoto. These conditions presupposed a certain "demarcation" of the Russian-Japanese border, as a result of which the border between the two countries would be moved to the north and run south of Urup Island, so that the islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai would be within Japanese territory! ¹⁰ .

However, Putin drew attention to the fact that the joint statements signed by Yeltsin with the heads of government of Japan (R. Hashimoto and K. Obuta) did not contain a strict commitment on both sides to sign a "peace treaty" within 2000. These documents stated only the intention of both parties to "make efforts" to sign such an agreement within the specified time frame, and nothing more. The Russian president also noted in his conversations with the Japanese Prime Minister that Moscow did not agree to the plan for "demarcating" the borders of both countries, which was put forward by Hashimoto in confidential conversations with Yeltsin, in previously signed Russian-Japanese statements. At the same time, Putin clearly informed his interlocutor about his negative attitude to such a "demarcation" ¹¹ .

The Japanese government was also uncooperative in the negotiations. Through the mouth of Prime Minister Mori, it has fully revealed its negative attitude towards the counter-proposals of the Russian leadership aimed at breaking the impasse that both sides have reached.

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countries in the course of their discussion of Japanese territorial claims to Russia. We are talking about the draft of the so-called "Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation" developed in Moscow and brought to Japan as an alternative to the Hashimoto Plan. According to the plan of the Russian leadership, the entry into force of this treaty should precede the signing of a "peace treaty" between the two countries, with the condition that the discussion of the Russian - Japanese territorial dispute will be postponed for the future - until good-neighborly, friendly relations between the two countries are strengthened ^.12

However, Mori rejected Putin's proposal, emphasizing his determination to continue to insist on discussing primarily Japanese territorial claims to our country. "During their negotiations, "the Daily Yomiuri wrote," the two leaders remained as far apart as ever on the issue of Japan's claim to regain the disputed islands east of Hokkaido. " ¹³

But the Japanese Prime Minister, whose popularity at home was already rapidly waning, did not expect the disagreements to escalate too much. Nor did Putin intend to focus his attention on the contradictions that exist between the two countries. Under these circumstances, a mutually acceptable way out of the impasse in the negotiations was for both sides to sign a joint memorandum on their mutual readiness to continue bilateral negotiations in order to resolve existing differences and conclude a "peace treaty" as soon as possible ^.14

Putin's confirmation on paper of such readiness can be seen as a concession by the Russian side to Japanese pressure, because for Russia, the actual "peace treaty", as is known, was the "Joint Declaration" signed in 1956 by the USSR and Japan, which stipulated the end of the state of war between both countries and provided for the restoration of their normal diplomatic relations. To this day, in addition to the Joint Declaration, Japan still needs a special "peace treaty" with Russia, the signing of which Tokyo diplomats still hope to use to consolidate their claims to the four Kuril Islands in its text and get these islands in the near future.

Moreover, the Joint Statement on the "peace treaty" signed during Putin's visit, unlike the Joint Declaration of 1956, which referred to two islands (Habomai and Shikotan), following the example of documents from the Gorbachev and Yeltsin times, mentioned four islands as objects of dispute, including Kunashir and Iturup15 .

By the way, during the days of the Russian president's stay in Tokyo, rumors began to spread in the press and political circles of the capital that allegedly Putin and Mori secretly allowed the possibility of some kind of compromise, suggesting, on the one hand, Moscow's readiness to give up two of the four South Kuril Islands, namely the Habomai and Shikotan Islands, and on the other the agreement of the Japanese Government to limit its demands to the two named islands only. The reason for such rumors was one short remark made by Putin, allegedly in a personal conversation with Mori, that the Russian president is guided in negotiations not only by the joint bilateral statements signed by Yeltsin with Japanese leaders in 1993 and 1998, but also by the Joint Declaration of 195616 .

At the same time, Tokyo commentators immediately drew attention to the fact that in the above-mentioned declaration, the Soviet Union promised Japan to transfer two southern Kuril Islands: Shikotan and Habomai, as a friendly gesture after the signing of the "peace treaty". But the question of whether Putin meant it that way remains unclear. Russian officials accompanying Putin in Japan gave either negative or evasive responses ^.17

Nevertheless, Japanese political observers claimed that Putin was allegedly the first Russian leader in recent years to recognize the validity of the above-mentioned declaration and the possibility of using it as a legal basis for continuing negotiations between the two countries related to their territorial dispute ^.18

During the September talks between Putin and Mori, another obvious trend of Japanese diplomacy also caught my eye, namely, the desire to speed up the achievement of a final agreement on the territorial dispute between the two countries in every possible way. Attempts by a number of Japanese politicians to sign the "peace treaty" without fail during 2000, that is, on the date agreed at the Krasnoyarsk meeting of Yeltsin and Hashimoto, took on a feverish character in the first days of September. But sober-minded politicians have already become quite clear that it is impossible to fulfill this promise in the remaining three months until the end of the year. Nevertheless, such influential representatives of the country's conservative circles as former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone continued to rush Mori and demand the impossible from him ^.19

However, another group of Japanese politicians was also active at the time, insisting that Mori and Putin, if their dispute was not resolved before the end of 2000, would set a new deadline for signing the treaty between the two countries at their talks in Tokyo. This was no more than the first months of 2001. In fact, all this fuss was nothing more than their psychological pressure not so much on Mori as on the Russian side. Without objecting in principle to speeding up negotiations and reducing the deadline for their completion. Putin explained to the Japanese the unreality of their demands and the futility of their attempts to force him to abandon the course of unhurried negotiations.

The Russian president managed to convince Mori of the need to abandon not only hopes for the immediate signing of a peace treaty, but also to mention in the final documents any specific deadlines for resuming negotiations on the territorial dispute. This finally ended Yeltsin's Krasnoyarsk promise to sign a "peace treaty" between the two countries no later than 2000.

Putin's visit to Tokyo received positive reviews on the pages of many Russian newspapers. The results of Putin's talks with Mori were viewed in a different, mostly critical tone by the Japanese media. So, for example, the newspaper "Japan Times", complaining about the inability of the participants of the Tokyo summit to successfully conclude the Russian-Japanese territorial dispute, and from-

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open the way to signing a peace treaty, " she wrote.: "The failure of negotiations aimed at reducing the existing differences between the parties over sovereignty over the four islands adjacent to Hokkaido clearly shows that the peace treaty remains as much an illusion as before. And this feeling is further reinforced by the fact that the two leaders have not set a date for their talks beyond the end of this year. " ²⁰

Since the joint statements of the leaders of Russia and Japan signed in Tokyo in September 2000 declared the intention of both sides not only to continue, but also to accelerate negotiations on the conclusion of a "peace treaty", Japanese diplomats in October and December of the same year began to insistently encourage Moscow to start new rounds of negotiations both at the working and high levels. For this reason, meetings between the Russian and Japanese deputy foreign ministers soon resumed, and in January, Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono himself came to Moscow to discuss the timing and agenda of a new meeting of the leaders of both countries during the unofficial visit of the Japanese Prime Minister to Russia in the spring of 2001 to visit the burial site near Irkutsk his father's ashes.

During his stay in Moscow, Kono tried to set an exact date for the Irkutsk summit, and to do this, meet not only with Foreign Minister Yi Ye. Ivanov, but also with the Russian president. However, the Japanese Foreign Minister did not feel the interest of the Russian side in resuming negotiations on the disputed "territorial issue". So, Putin, citing his busy schedule, could not even receive Kono during his stay on Moscow soil. As ITAR-TASS's Tokyo correspondent V. Golovnin reported to Moscow, Japanese political commentators saw Putin's refusal to meet with Kono as an offensive gesture for the Japanese foreign Minister and the whole of Japan ^.21 Only then did the Kremlin send an official confirmation of its agreement to the Irkutsk summit with the exact date specified, namely, March ²⁵, 200122 . Later, in a telephone conversation with Mori on February 13. Putin reiterated this proposed meeting date on ²³ .

Putin's meeting with Mori in Irkutsk on March 25, 2001, did not raise high expectations in both countries. One of the reasons for this was the skeptical attitude of both our and Japanese mass media to the political capacity of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who lost the support of the overwhelming majority of the Japanese public in the previous months and announced shortly before his trip to Irkutsk that he intended to resign as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the coming days, consequently, so do the heads of government.

The talks between Putin and Mori did not portend any significant progress in the sphere of economic cooperation between the two countries, because in the six months that have passed since the meeting of the Tokyo Russian-Japanese summit, Japanese business circles have not shown much interest in expanding trade ties between the two countries, as well as in investing capital in the economic life of the Far Eastern regions of our country. The maximum that Japanese business leaders have decided to do so far is to send a delegation of their representatives headed by the Chairman of the Federation of Economic Organizations of Japan (Keidanren)to Russia in the summer of 2001 Takashi Imai, designed to explore the investment opportunities of our country ²⁴ .

Perhaps the only issue on the agenda of the Irkutsk meeting of the heads of government of the two countries, which caused various interpretations in the Russian and Japanese press both before and after it, was again the discussion of the Russian-Japanese territorial dispute. Compared to the Tokyo Summit, this discussion has brought out new points. So, it seems, the intention of the Japanese side to realize its claims to the four South Kuril islands on the basis of the sly idea of "demarcating" the Russian - Japanese border has disappeared. On the other hand, Mori and his advisers based their territorial harassment of our country on a unilateral interpretation of the 1956 Joint Declaration, the overall positive significance of which, as is well known, has never been denied by either the Soviet or Russian sides.

The main advantage of this document, as our diplomats and the press constantly noted, was that its text clearly stated the end of the state of war between both countries and fixed the course for restoring normal diplomatic relations between them. However, starting in 1960, the Soviet Government and the public began to show a negative attitude towards article 9 of the declaration. In it, meeting the wishes of the Japanese side. As a friendly gesture, the Soviet Union promised to hand over the two islands of Shikotan and Habomai to Japan, with the proviso that this would happen after the Japanese side signed the Soviet-Japanese peace treaty. The reason for Moscow's refusal of this promise was the signing by Japan in January 1960 of a new text of the Japanese-American "security treaty", directed with its sharp edge against the Soviet Union and involving the use of Japanese territory, including its northern edge, as a military base for the Pentagon. It was then that Moscow sent notes to Tokyo accusing Japan of deviating from the spirit and letter of the Joint Declaration and declaring its refusal for this reason to transfer the two named islands to Japan, even if both countries signed a "peace treaty".

In the following years, Japanese diplomacy began to persistently put forward claims not only to the islands of Habomai and Shikotan, but also to the two largest and most important in economic and military relations islands of the Kuril Archipelago: Kunashir and Iturup.

Prime Minister Mori did not abandon these claims during the Irkutsk summit. At the same time, the Japanese side sought, as it has done many times in the past, to distort the content of article 9 of the 1956 Joint Declaration. Interpreting this article as if its text suggested the transfer of the Habomai and Shikotan Islands to Japan before the signing of the "peace treaty". Mori and his advisers went even further and claimed that the article involved negotiations between the two countries on the fate of Kunashir and Iturup, although there is no mention of these islands in either article 9 or other sections of the Joint Declaration.

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The claims of the Japanese side to the four southern Kuril Islands were again rejected by Putin. But this time the Russian side, according to the Japanese press, did not mention the notes of 1960, which contained the refusal of the Soviet Union to transfer two islands to Japan after the signing of the "peace treaty" due to the threat of deploying US military bases on them. Japanese commentators are trying to prove that Moscow is allegedly moving away from the tough position that the Soviet leadership took in the territorial dispute with Japan during the 60s and 80s, and which boiled down to the fact that the "territorial issue" in relations between the two countries no longer exists. In their opinion, the Russian-Japanese territorial dispute took a new turn in Irkutsk, namely, Moscow's readiness to discuss the possibility of territorial concessions to the Japanese within the limits allowed by the Joint Declaration of 1956 was highlighted. "Russia," the Kyodo Tsushin news agency reported from Irkutsk, "wants to put an end to the dispute by returning the two islands mentioned in the declaration." ²⁵

However, it is worth recalling that in September 2000, on the eve of the Tokyo "summit", while holding a meeting in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk with representatives of the local public, Putin unequivocally stated that the Russian leadership, although ready to negotiate and discuss the territorial dispute with the Japanese, was "not going to return the islands" ²⁶ . Reports about this presidential statement were then published not only in the Russian press, but also in the Japanese, in particular in the newspaper "Japan Times" ²⁷ .

In both Tokyo and Irkutsk, Putin, without elaborating on article 9 of the 1956 Joint Declaration, said that the article "requires additional work by experts to develop a uniform understanding" of its provisions ^.28 What exactly the President meant by the words "developing a uniform understanding", however, remains a mystery to political observers. According to the author of these lines, the President's interpretation of the content of article 9 does not coincide with the Japanese one.

Putin's comments on article 9 of the Joint Declaration have led to a clear divergence in the Russian press's assessment of the outcome of the Irkutsk talks. Some of our compatriots in their comments did not see anything significant in the results of the March talks in Irkutsk at all. A columnist for Novye Izvestia, for example, summed up ironically that "the novelty of the Irkutsk meeting lies solely in the fact that nothing new was heard at it." ²⁹ The newspaper " Kommersant "accompanied its comment with an optimistic conclusion:" Vladimir Putin did not give Japan the islands... The territorial dispute remained unresolved. " ³⁰ But the commentator of the newspaper Segodnya, unlike his colleagues, saw in the Irkutsk statements of the Russian president a transparent hint addressed to the Japanese: "if you don't agree to two islands , you won't get anything at all." ³¹

The opinion of a commentator from the newspaper Segodnya reflects the opinion of Russian supporters of a "compromise" based on the cession of two islands to the Japanese. But betting on a "compromise" is nothing more than an illusion. The fact is that the political situation in Japan precludes the consent of if not all, then the overwhelming majority of parliamentary parties and politicians to such an end to the territorial dispute with our country. Not only the leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, but also opposition politicians openly expressed their negative attitude to the idea of Japan's refusal to demand all four South Kuril Islands on the eve and during the Irkutsk talks. And the Prime Minister himself, upon returning to Tokyo on March 26, immediately stated that neither he personally nor the government headed by him were going to give up their claims to Iturup and Kunashir ^.32

As noted in the propaganda book " Milestones towards the conclusion of a peace treaty...", published by the Japanese in Moscow, "the proposal that Japan rejected 43 years ago at a time when its state power was very small, modern Japan can not accept... At present, the question on the Japanese side is fundamentally: return of all the northern islands - Habomai, Shikotan, Kunashir and Iturup, or-none " ³³ .

It seems to the author of this article that Russia should abandon, and at that quickly, any illusory hopes for a radical solution to the territorial dispute with Japan and the rapid signing of a "peace treaty" between the two countries-a treaty that is needed today not so much by Russia as by Japan. For our country, the Joint Declaration of 1956, which legally ended the state of war between the two countries and consolidated the restoration of their normal diplomatic relations, became and remains a de facto peace treaty to this day. If the Japanese side intends to continue to persist in its groundless territorial demands in the course of further negotiations, then it would be best for Moscow to break off these endless negotiations, which have been going on for more than forty years and have no end in sight. And if some of our strategists do not dare, for some "higher order" reasons, to be the first to put an end to this obviously unpromising dialogue with the Japanese, then God himself has ordered us to delay negotiations in every possible way and conduct them in such a way that at a convenient moment we can put all this endless unnecessary nonsense in a long box for decades.

¹ See Asahi Shimbun, September 1, 2000.

² See "News Catalog", ITAR-TASS, September 4, 2000.

³ Rossiyskaya Gazeta, September 6, 2000.

⁴ "Nihon Kokusei Jue 2000/2001", Tokyo Kokuseisha, 2000, p. 327.

⁵ Kommersant, September 6, 2000

⁶ Rossiyskaya Gazeta, September 6, 2000.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Kommersant, September 5, 2000

⁹ "Milestones on the way to the conclusion of a peace treaty between Japan and Russia", Moscow, "Mainland", 2000, p. 101.

¹⁰ "The Japan Times", September 5, 2000.

¹¹ "The Japan Times", September 6, 2000.

¹² Ibid.

¹³ "The Daily Yomiuri", September 6, 2000.

¹⁴ "The Japan Times", September 6, 2000.

¹⁵ Segodnya, September 6, 2000

¹⁶ "The Daily Yomiuri", September 6, 2000.

¹⁷ See ITAR-TASS News Catalog, report of correspondent V. Solntsev. Tokyo, September 6, p. 1.

¹⁸ "The Japan Times", September 5, 2000.

¹⁹ "The Daily Yomiuri", September 4, 2000.

²⁰ "The Japan Times", September 6, 2000.

²¹ Izvestia, January 31, 2000

²² Ibid.

²³ "ITAR-TASS News Catalog", February 13, 2001.

²⁴ "The Daily Yomiuri", March 26, 2001.

²⁵ "The Japan Times", March 26, 2001.

²⁶ Kommersant, September 5, 2000

²⁷ "The Japan Times", September 5, 2000.

²⁸ Segodnya, March 26, 2001

²⁹ Novye Izvestiya, March 27, 2001

³⁰ Kommersant, March 26, 2001

³¹ "Today", March 26, 2001

³² See the ITAR-TASS News Catalog, post by V. Golovnin. Tokyo, March 26, 2000

³³ "Milestones on the way..." Cit. See above, pp. 125, 126.

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