The Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun carried an article titled "Counterproductive Proposals on Concessions to Russia" by Professor Shigeki Hakamada from the Aoyama Gakuin University...Hakamada believes...that the negotiations should be conducted without much publicity and should primarily be aimed at building up trust between the two parties. Hakamada suggests delaying talks on this issue of national importance for a hundred years if such talks are too difficult today...
...Quoting public opinion polls, Hakamada writes that about 85 percent of the Japanese consider the problem of northern territories to be an obstacle to the development of bilateral relations. I think that the majority of my compatriots share this opinion. We do not see what else can obstruct our good neighborly relations except for the border issue. However, it will be difficult to resolve this issue in the near future even if there is mutual will to do so. Hakamada explains this by Russia's mounting nationalist and great power ambitions; I believe the reason lies in the absence of political, and especially psychological, conditions for compromise.
Today, 73 percent of Russians are against territorial concessions to Japan and only 2 percent find them possible. About 75 percent of those polled in Siberia and Russia's Far East will change their attitude to President Vladimir Putin for the worse if he lets the Kuril Islands go. Russia had to toughen its position on Japan's territorial claims with due account of these polls. Also, this territorial dispute has gone far beyond the diplomatic framework a long time ago and has become a subject of heated domestic political debates in Russia. It features prominently in the elections to both local and central bodies of government...more...