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TOKYO --The buzz at the Balalaika restaurant in the Kanda district
these evenings, as well as at the 27 other s specializing in Russian
cuisine in this largest city in the world, is about Vladimir Putin.
In any democracy, which Russia has been tentatively since 1991, the
first duty of the President is to get elected.
Putin, 47, who has been prime minister and now acting president, seems
to have the requirement satisfied for the March 26 Russian presidential
election. He is the hand-picked successor of former President Boris
Yeltsin, the favorite of the Yeltsin coterie known as "The Family, " and
the darling of an increasingly active--some go so far as to say
independent--press.
So Putin's election seems assured. Then what? Does the former KGB
officer have a "Japan policy?" Will he show the same enthusiasm for
solving the northern islands issue and signing a peace treaty with Japan
that Yeltsin displayed, albeit perhaps superficially?
The Foreign Ministry seems only marginally better informed than local
cafe society on these points.
Officials in the Russian section, including European Bureau Chief
Kazuhiko Togo, did not try to hide their surprise at the timing of
Yeltsin's resignation on New Year's Eve.
A high-ranking ministry official was quoted as saying that Putin and
Obuchi met last September at the Asia Pacifc Economic Cooperation (APEC)
forum in New Zealand and the former told the latter that he would follow
all agreements Yeltsin and former Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stephasin
had made with Japan.
An agreement made by Yeltsin and then-Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto
in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, in November ,1997, committed the two nations to
sign a peace treaty by the end of 2000.
During talks at the Kawana Resort in Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture in April,
1998, Hashimoto handed Yeltsin a set of proposals:
--That a boundary line be drawn north of the northern
territories--Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan islands and the Habomai islets.
--That Moscow observe Japan's residual sovereignty over the territories.
--That Tokyo recognize and allow Russia's effective rule over the
territories.
Russia balked at the specificity of terms on sovereignty and the proposal
died when Yeltsin and Obuchi met in November 1998.
But the scheduling of a Yeltsin visit this spring was anticipated with
some optimism.
Now Yeltsin officially is on the sidelines. There has been no real
change since Soviet troops seized the islands just weeks after Japan's
1945 surrender to the Allies. The two countries never signed a peace treaty
for the war, largely because of the northern territories dispute.
Although a fence-mending and get-acquainted visit by Putin to Tokyo
later this year cannot be ruled out, it is likely that Chechnya, the
economy and other matters closer to home will keep him occupied.
What is more likely, according to Tokyo diplomatic and table talk, is a
private visit here by a rested Citizen Yeltsin, following the tradition of
his predecessor, former Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev.
One year after becoming the first Moscow leader since World War II to
visit Japan in 1991, Gorby returned as a civilian in April, 1992.
He and wife Raisa came at the invitation of Japan's two largest
newspapers, Yomiuri Shim bun and Asahi Shim bun, who paid an estimated
US$400,000 in lecture and columnist fees.
Whether or not Yeltsin will follow Gorbachev's lead and set up his own
Foundation to facilitate his travel fees, many Japanese would welcome a
visit by a leading Russian figure.
Though not of celebrity status, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov is due in
Tokyo Feb. 9 as part of a visit to Vietnam, North Korea and Japan. Ivanov
feels no urgency about the northern territories' issue but wants to
caution Japan about participation with the U.S. in a theater missile
defense system.
Edward Neilan (eneilan@crisscross.com) is a veteran journalist, based in Tokyo, who covers East Asia and writes weekly for World Tribune.com.