Why Russia will not return the Kuril Islands to Japan
More than 60 years of stubborn diplomatic stalemate stemming from the Second World War doesn’t appear likely to end. Tourists in October on the Yankito Plateau on Iturup Island, the largest one of the Kuril Islands, known in Japan as the Northern Territories (Yuri Smityuk/TASS via Getty Images) The decades-old dispute between Russia and Japan…