Abe eager to visit Russia in May for talks with Putin

January 8, 2018

Nagato, Yamaguchi Pref.- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stressed his eagerness to visit Russia in May for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"If circumstances permit, I'd like to visit Russia in May and hold a bilateral summit (with Putin) so that we can make progress, even if only slightly, in the two countries' territorial row and the issue of a bilateral peace treaty," Abe said during a meeting held on Sunday by a support group for him at a hot spring hotel in the city of Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan.

Noting that he and Putin had a meeting at the hotel in December 2016, Abe said that progress has been made in Japan-Russia negotiations on joint activities on and around four Russian-held northwestern Pacific islands at the center of the longstanding territorial issue and in former Japanese residents' trips to the islands.

Arrangements are being made for Abe to visit St. Petersburg for participating in an international economic forum meeting in the western Russian city in May.

The Japanese-claimed islands were seized by the former Soviet Union from the Asian nation at the end of World War II.

The dispute has prevented Tokyo and Moscow from concluding a peace treaty to formally end their wartime hostilities. The islands are known as the Northern Territories in Japan. Jiji Press