Putin ready to seek mutually acceptable conditions with Japan

February 21, 2019

Moscow--Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday expressed his country's intention to work with Japan to seek mutually acceptable conditions for concluding a World War II peace treaty.

In his annual state of the nation address in Moscow, Putin said that he will continue political dialogue and economic cooperation with Japan.

On the diplomatic front, Putin made comments on China, India and Japan after referring to multilateral frameworks.

He made no direct remark on the four northwestern Pacific islands at the center of the decades-old territorial issue between Tokyo and Moscow.

Japan claims that the islands, known as the Northern Territories in the country, were seized by the former Soviet Union from Japan at the end of the war. The territorial dispute has prevented Tokyo and Moscow from concluding a peace treaty to formally end their wartime hostilities. Jiji Press