The Kuril Islands dispute, known as the Northern Territories dispute in Japan, is a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia over the ownership of the four southernmost Kuril Islands. The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands that stretch between the Japanese island of Hokkaido at their southern end and the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula at their northern end. The islands separate the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. The four disputed islands, like other islands in the Kuril chain that are not in dispute, were unilaterally annexed by the Soviet Union following the Kuril Islands landing operation at the end of World War II. The disputed islands are under Russian administration as the South Kuril District and part of Kuril District of the Sakhalin Oblast (Сахалинская область, Sakhalinskaya oblast). They are claimed by Japan, which refers to them as its Northern Territories or Southern Chishima, and considers them part of the Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture.
The islands in dispute are:
Iturup (Итуруп)—Etorofu Island (Japanese: 択捉島, Etorofu-tō)
Kunashir (Кунашир)—Kunashiri Island (Japanese: 国後島, Kunashiri-tō)
Shikotan (Шикотан)—Shikotan Island (Japanese: 色丹島, Shikotan-tō)
Habomai Islands (острова Хабомаи ostrova Khabomai)—Habomai Islands (Japanese: 歯舞群島, Habomai-guntō)
The San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed between the Allies and Japan in 1951, also does not recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over them. Japan claims that at least some of the disputed islands are not a part of the Kuril Islands, and thus are not covered by the treaty. Russia maintains that the Soviet Union's sovereignty over the islands was recognized in post-war agreements. Japan and the Soviet Union ended their formal state of war with the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 but did not sign a peace treaty. During talks leading to the joint declaration, the Soviet Union offered Japan the two smaller islands of Shikotan and the Habomai Islands in exchange for Japan renouncing all claims to the two bigger islands of Iturup and Kunashir, but Japan declined the offer.
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Karafuto Agency, from 1943 Karafuto Prefecture (樺太庁, Karafuto-chō later 樺太県, Karafuto-ken; Prefektura Karafuto), commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a colony of the Empire of Japan on Sakhalin from 1907 to 1943 and later a prefecture until 1945. Karafuto became a territory of the Empire of Japan in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, when the portion of Sakhalin south of 50°N was ceded from the Russian Empire in the Treaty of Portsmouth. Karafuto was established in 1907 as an external territory, until being upgraded to an "Inner Land" of the Japanese metropole in 1943.
Sakhalin Oblast (Сахали́нская о́бласть) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast) comprising the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the Russian Far East. The oblast has an area of . Its administrative center and largest city is Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. As of the 2021 Census, the oblast has a population of roughly 500,000. The vast majority of the oblast's residents are ethnic Russians, with a small minority of Sakhalin Koreans. Sakhalin Oblast is rich in natural gas and oil, and is Russia's fourth wealthiest federal subject and wealthiest oblast.
The Sea of Okhotsk (Okhotskoye more; Historically also known as Lamutskoye more, or as Kamchatskoye more; Ohōtsuku-kai; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a stretch of eastern Siberian coast along the west and north. The northeast corner is the Shelikhov Gulf.