[CTRL] Fwd: [cia-drugs] Russia Wants Back Tsarist Gold Worth Billions

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 13:27:19 -0700

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Russia Wants Back Tsarist Gold Worth Billions

By Maria Golovnina

Russia wants to start talks with Japan to return billions of dollars worth of the last tsar's gold that ended up in a Tokyo bank in the chaotic years of the Civil War, the Foreign Ministry said last week.

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 World War II 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," Interfax quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko as saying.

"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," Yakovenko said.

"Russia and Japan are trying to build good, neighborly relations. ... Such trust calls to remove doubts and stop sweeping things under the carpet."

In 1994, Russia unearthed documents testifying that Kolchak, a "white" commander killed by the Bolsheviks in 1920, had sent at least 22 boxes filled with gold ingots to Japan for storage.

Researcher Vladlen Sirotkin, in a widely publicized study in 2000, said the gold was given to Japan in exchange for weapons, but Kolchak had received no military hardware.

Sirotkin estimated that, if interest is taken into account for the time the gold has been in Japan, it would now be worth $80 billion, similar to Russia's total gold and foreign currency reserves and enough to pay two-thirds of Russia's foreign debt.

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. Japan has not officially commented on the matter.

Russia has refused Japan's demand to return four small islands in the Far East seized in the final days of World War II.

According to some estimates, Russia has claims to foreign property worth up to $400 billion, including tons of tsarist gold stored in Japanese, European and U.S. banks.



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