Prime Minister Shinzo Abe received a courtesy call from the Liaison Council of Municipalities in Nemuro Subprefecture for the Development of Regions near the Northern Territories at the Prime Minister's Office.

The Prime Minister said in his address,

“The return of the Northern Territories is truly the ardent wish of all Japanese citizens. I would like to again express my admiration for the hard work being done every day, particularly by people in the regions, in order to reach this goal.

Thank you all for visiting my office today. I hope your visit will give you a platform for spreading awareness of this issue in Japan and also throughout the world.   I too shall work to solve the Northern Territories issue and then conclude a peace treaty. I feel this is my mission as a politician and as the Prime Minister of Japan. I want to achieve this by any means possible, and I am resolved to tackle this issue with tenacity.

When I visited Russia last year, I shared the view with President Putin that we would accelerate efforts for the negotiation of a peace treaty in order to solve this issue of the attribution of the Four Northern Islands and conclude the peace treaty. Since then, we have been advancing discussions at every level, including at the level of our heads of state, as well as the level of our Ministers for Foreign Affairs and our Directors-General.

When my father, Shintaro Abe, was Minister for Foreign Affairs, he also shared this tenacity. Just before he passed away, he steeled himself against his ill health and made a visit to what was then called the Soviet Union and met with President Gorbachev. President Gorbachev had until then had taken the stance that there was no territorial issue with Japan, but my father convinced President Gorbachev to express a conviction to use their wisdom to find a solution.  After that, one month before he passed away, my father welcomed President Gorbachev to Japan. He worked hard because this was an issue that he wanted to solve, no matter what, as a member of the generation that lived through World War II.

The issue was finally left up to us born in the period after World War II, and now I want to make every effort to resolve it. To this end, I believe that deepening understanding about this issue among young people is also extremely important, so I want to again express my gratitude for the extremely significant work being done to raise awareness about this issue. Let us continue to work hard together. Thank you very much.”