Putin will welcome Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in April, during the summit. Mr Abe’s aim will be the advancing his effort to end a territorial spat and conclude a peace treaty.
Vladimir Putin and Shinzo Abe will meet in April in Moscow where they discuss again the actual issues of the foreign policy like the Russian-Japanese territorial dispute over a string of western Pacific islands. Kurils were seized by the USSR at the end of World War Two. that times the Soviet Union hope on the building better ties to counter a rising communistic China.
Since then, Japan tries to get these islands back. The foreign minister Fumio Kishida said after the recent meeting with his counterpart Lavrov:
“We’ve agreed to accelerate preparation for the summit meeting.”
Putin and Abe: resumption of dialogue in the two-plus-two format
Vladimir Putin paid a visit to Japan last December, during it, both states agreed to resume ‘two-plus-two’ security dialogue, that means the foreign and defence ministers will take part too. Such a format of talks was suspended in 2014, immediately after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
Now, it looks like Japan has stepped back from its position and prefers to think Crimean’s issue doesn’t exist anymore. Probably, Putin has outplayed Abe in December and the next summit just will make Russia’s position stronger.
