蘇聯拒絕簽署《舊金山和約》,同時公開表示千島群島問題是其拒絕簽字的主要原因之一。日本方面則簽署並批准了和約。目前日本政府與多數日本媒體均認為[17]早在1951年同盟國召開舊金山和平會議時,日本所聲索的擇捉島、國後島、色丹島與齒舞群島等島嶼便已不是千島群島的一部分,因此應不為和約效力所及。這項主張遭到俄羅斯與部分西方歷史學者的反駁[18][19]。在2005年《日本時報》的一篇新聞中,記者格列高里·克拉克(英语:Gregory Clark (economist))寫道從1951年日本政府的正式聲明、地圖與其他文件,以及參與舊金山會議的美國代表團主席約翰·福斯特·杜勒斯的聲明來看,當時的日本與美國均認定國後島與擇捉島是千島群島的一部分,當受《舊金山和約》拘束[4]。克拉克稍後於1992年在《紐約時報》的一篇專欄中闡述了相同的看法[20]。
^Article 25 of The San Francisco Peace Treaty defines the Allied Forces as "the States at war with Japan, […] provided that in each case the State concerned has signed and ratified the Treaty. […] the present Treaty shall not confer any rights, titles or benefits on any State which is not an Allied Power as herein defined; nor shall any right, title or interest of Japan be deemed to be diminished or prejudiced by any provision of the Treaty in favor of a State which is not an Allied Power as so defined." The Allied powers were Australia, Canada, Ceylon, France, Indonesia, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Republic of the Philippines, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America. The Soviet Union refused to sign the treaty.
^ 4.04.1Northern Territories dispute highlights flawed diplomacy. (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆) By Gregory Clark. Japan Times, March 24, 2005. "Japanese materials at the time – Foreign Ministry maps, statements by former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida at San Francisco and in his later memoirs, and newspaper reports all make it clear that Etorofu and Kunashiri were most definitely included. The chief U.S. negotiator for the San Francisco treaty, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, agreed. Asked at San Francisco to define the territory of the Kurils, he said only that the Habomais might be excluded (at the time there were suggestions that Shikotan might be part of the Kurils). More was to follow. Questioned in the Diet on October 19, 1951, over whether the word "Kurils" as used in the treaty included Etorofu and Kunashiri, the head of the Foreign Ministry Treaties Bureau, Kumao Nishimura, said unambiguously that both the northern Chishima and southern Chishima (Etorofu and Kunashiri) were included."
^Sohn, Joan. 36 Letters. Jewish Publication Society. 2011 [2017-02-20]. ISBN 0827609264. (原始内容存档于2019-06-06). The fabled Russian military machine proved to be inept and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 was a slaughterhouse and a disaster. ... Brest was a transit station and camp for the army, and the city was full of soldiers and reservists returning from the disastrous Russo-Japanese War.
^Papastratigakis, Nicholas. Russian Imperialism and Naval Power: Military Strategy and the Build-Up to the Russo-Japanese War. I. B. Tauris. 2011 [2017-02-20]. ISBN 1848856911. (原始内容存档于2019-06-12). Gatrell has asserted that the navy, in contrast to the army, was not underfunded and the armament requirements of the Navy Ministry were satisfied, since most of the money was spent on the construction and repair of vessels. In this sense he attributed the navy's disastrous performance in the Russo-Japanese War to the mismanagement of adequate resources and enforced economies impairing the training of crews.
^Text of Dulles Reply to the Soviet Charges Against Japanese Peace Treaty; THE PRESIDENT ARRIVING TO OPEN PEACE CONFERENCE (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆), New York Times, September 4, 1951; from page 3: "Charge: [...] Likewise, the Treaty States that southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands are to be detached from Japan but does not state, as previously promised by the United States, that these territories should be handed over to the Soviet Union.
Reply: [...] As regards South Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, the treaty carries out the provisions of the Potsdam surrender terms, the only agreement by which Japan and the Allied powers as a whole are bound. So long as other governments have rights under the Yalta Agreement which the Soviet Union has not fulfilled, there is at least question as to whether the Soviet Union can, "with clean hands", demand the fulfillment of the parts of that agreement it likes".
^Text of Gromyko's Statement on the Peace Treaty. (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆)New York Times, September 9, 1951; From page 26: "The Soviet delegation has already drawn the attention of the conference to the inadmissibility of the situation under which the draft peace treaty with Japan fails to state that Japan should recognize the sovereignty of the Soviet Union over the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. The draft is in flagrant contradiction with the obligations assumed by the United States and Great Britain with regard to these territories under the Yalta Agreement."
^ 16.016.1Bruce A. Elleman, Michael R. Nichols and Matthew J. Ouimet, A Historical Reevaluation of America's Role in the Kuril Islands Dispute, Pacific Affairs, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Winter, 1998–1999), pp. 489–504
^The convoluted case of the coveted Kurils. (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆) By Kosuke Takahashi. Asia Times. November 25, 2004. "Japan and the Allied Powers, including the US and the UK, signed the peace treaty in San Francisco in 1951, when the Soviet Union participated but did not sign the treaty. At the conference, Japan renounced the "Kuril Islands", excluding Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, or the Habomai islands, which Japan claimed had always been Japanese territories and wished to claim them after the war."
^ 18.018.1Kimie Hara, 50 Years from San Francisco: Re-Examining the Peace Treaty and Japan's Territorial Problems. Pacific Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 361–382. Available online at J-STOR (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆).
^ 22.022.1James E. Goodby, Vladimir I. Ivanov, Nobuo Shimotomai, '"Northern territories" and beyond: Russian, Japanese, and American Perspectives, Praeger Publishers, 1995
^Fackler, Martin. Japan Summons Envoy to Russia Over Kurile Islands Dispute. New York Times. 2010-11-02: A12 [2010-11-03]. (原始内容存档于2020-12-14). Japan's dispute with Russia has divided the two countries for more than half a century, preventing them from signing a formal peace treaty to conclude World War II.
^European Parliament resolution on relations between the EU, China and Taiwan and security in the Far East #15 [1]Archive.is的存檔,存档日期2012-10-11
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Harvard University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-674-01693-9.
Stephan, John J. The Kuril Islands Russo-Japanese Frontier in the Pacific. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974. ISBN 0-19-821563-0
Kimie Hara, 50 Years from San Francisco: Re-Examining the Peace Treaty and Japan's Territorial Problems. Pacific Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 361–382. Available online at J-STOR(页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆).