Oct. 19 marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration, which restored diplomatic ties between Japan and the then Soviet Union (now Russia). Yet the prospect for solving the Northern Territories issue has not improved.
As the Russian economy is in a good shape mainly due to high prices of crude oil, an important Russian export, economic relations between the two countries are expanding. Bilateral trade reached a record $10.7 billion in 2005. Many Japanese firms including Toyota and Nissan are doing business in Russia.
But overall bilateral ties are not bright. In August, a Japanese fishing boat was fired on by a Russian maritime border patrol boat off Hokkaido, resulting in the death of a Japanese fisherman and the capture of three others. Separately, the Russian government has decided to cancel an environmental permit for the Sakhalin-2 international oil and gas project, in which Royal Dutch Shell has a 55 percent stake and Mitsui and Mitsubishi own 25 percent and 20 percent, respectively.