Differences with its Japanese translation contributed to the controversy on what constitutes the Kuril islands, claims to which Japan renounced in 1951 by the Treaty of San Francisco.

When Golovnin and his crew aboard the ship Diana approached Kunashir Island, they were taken ashore and imprisoned for violating Sakoku, or Japanese isolationist policies.

[7] The Treaty of Shimoda of 1855 had defined the border between Japan and Russia to be the strait between Iturup (Etorofu) and Urup (Uruppu) islands in the Kurile chain, but had left the status of Sakhalin (Karafuto) open.

In order to remedy this situation, the Japanese government sent an ambassador, Enomoto Takeaki, to Saint Petersburg to clearly define the border in this area.

After a year of negotiations, Japan agreed to renounce its claims to Sakhalin, with compensation for Japanese residents, access by the fishing fleet to the Sea of Okhotsk, ten-years free use of Russian ports in the area and ownership of all of the Kuril Islands.

[citation needed] The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs still cites this treaty as the justification for treating the Kuril Islands as its the northernmost territory.