"In compliance with Article 9 of the Declaration of 1956, the USSR has expressed its readiness to transfer two of four disputed islands to Japan only if a peace treaty was signed," he said.
According to Kosachev, the ideology of the declaration is "first the treaty, then the islands".
He said Japan tended to interpret the provision is a different manner to claim that "now that Russia has allegedly admitted transfer of two islands, we can press on the other two and only then sign a peace treaty." Russia, he said, opposed such interpretation.
In comment on Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's recent remarks on the topic, Kosachev said, "I state firmly that the [minister's] statement does not provide any changes to Russia's position in the territorial dispute with Japan."
On Sunday, talking to NTV television network, Lavrov recalled the Declaration of 1956.
"As the legal successor of the USSR, Russia has inherited all its previous obligations," Lavrov had said, recalling that the Declaration had a provision about possible transfer of the two islands.
"For various reasons, later the provisions of the declaration were dismissed," the minister had stated.
Sergei Bulatsev, Professor of the Faculty of Oriental studies, St. Petersburg State University, told RIA Novosti that the Declaration signed in 1956 had been only one of working documents and said that Russia had never denied admitting this document.
"Admittance of this document is by no means a sensation. This document is much talked about because it is the last paper so far that has declared something between us," the expert said.
He added both sides had a lot of other documents on the topic to work with.
"The minister's statementis the affirmation of a long-standing fact, rather than a guidance," he concluded.
