861b.6363/192: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 31—1:15 p.m.]
1112. Vyshinski told me today on instructions and for transmission to my Government that the agreement with the Japanese for the relinquishment of their concessions in Sakhalin and the new fisheries convention were being signed today.31 He said that the transfer of the Sakhalin concessions had already been effected and that the Japs no longer had any concessions in that area. With regard to the Fisheries Convention he said that he wished to point out especially that it provided that certain fishing lots would not be leased to the Japs until the end of the war in the Pacific. The other alterations were economic in character and introduced changes to the advantage of the Soviet side with regard to conditions of lease, etc. The new convention will run for a period of 5 years subject to annual renewal. Vyshinski emphasized that the Soviet Government had been able to obtain much more favorable terms in the present convention than in the past since its position was now much stronger as a result of the successes of the Red Army. He then showed me the text of the [Page 856] clause by which the Jap Government undertakes not to fish in waters off Kamchatka or in Olyutorski Bay33 until the end of the war in the Pacific. Vyshinski remarked that it would be “inconvenient” to have Japs fishing vessels operating in these waters at the present time. He said that the foregoing restrictive provision would be kept secret but that the other terms of the Fisheries Convention would be published in the Soviet press.
- The text of the protocol on the liquidation of Japanese oil and coal concessions in northern Sakhalin Island was published in New York Times, April 1, 1944, p. 4. For illustrations of the importance of these Japanese concessions in the Soviet part of Sakhalin Island, and of the suggested retrocession of the southern part of the Island to the Soviet Union by Japan, as conditions for the conclusion of a political agreement between Japan and the Soviet Union in 1940, see Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. i, pp. 643, 670, 674, 676, and 679.↩
- The Olyutorsky Bay is situated along the northeastern base of the Kamchatka Peninsula, between the Olyutorsky Cape and Peninsula at the north, and the Govena Cape and Peninsula at the south, facing into the Bering Sea.↩