RUSSIA: Russia wants to start talks with Japan to return billions of dollars worth of the last tsar's gold which ended up in a Tokyo bank in the chaotic years of the Russian civil war, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.
The gold, shipped to Japan by White Army commander Admiral Alexander Kolchak in the closing days of anti-Bolshevik resistance, remains an irritant to Moscow's warming relations with Tokyo along with a territorial dispute in the far east.
Tokyo and Moscow, which have yet to sign a peace treaty formally ending their second World War conflict, have made little progress on the fate of the tsarist gold since the issue sprang to the top of their bilateral agenda after the Soviet collapse. But recently, Russia made "certain investigations and inquiries to the Japanese side", foreign ministry spokesman Mr Alexander Yakovenko said.
"The theme of the Russian gold in Japan is not a subject of diplomatic negotiations between our countries at the moment. But this does not mean the Russian foreign ministry is ignoring the issue," he said.
"Russia and Japan are trying to build good, neighbourly relations.Such trust calls to remove doubts and stop sweeping things under the carpet."
In 1994, Russia unearthed documents testifying that Admiral Kolchak, a White commander killed by the Bolsheviks in 1920, had sent at least 22 boxes of gold ingots to Japan for storage.
Researcher Vladlen Sirotkin, in a widely publicised study in 2000, said the gold was given to Japan in exchange for weapons, but the admiral had received no military hardware.
He estimated that, if interest is taken into account for the time the gold has been in Japan, it would now be worth $80 billion.
Interfax said the bullion is now held at Japan's Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi. But diplomatic sources say a lack of evidence prevents Russia from turning it into a big diplomatic issue. - (Reuters)