Tokyo's anti-Moscow policy and Russia's backlash have led to problems for Japanese fishermen, who complain about a possible "very difficult spring." Hokkaido Shimbun writes about it.

The material noted that delays in negotiations on the terms of fishing off the Kuril Islands led to a halt in fishing. At the same time, the water area of the islands is rich in marine resources.

“Ordinary fishermen always suffer from your policy. Today, many people have no other choice but to leave the fishing business, ”the Japanese fisherman quoted the publication as saying.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated last year, said in a memoir that Japan's demand for the return of all of the southern Kuril Islands would mean that it would, in fact, never return them. It is clarified that Abe did not believe that Japan had made concessions when, in November 2018, a dialogue began between Moscow and Tokyo on concluding a peace treaty based on the Soviet-Japanese declaration of 1956. At that time, the USSR was ready to transfer Shikotan and several small uninhabited islands of the Lesser Kuril Range to Japan on the condition that the Japanese side would actually receive the islands after the signing of a peace treaty.