Japanese top diplomat points to huge potential of relations between Tokyo, Moscow

MOSCOW, January 14. /TASS/. Tokyo and Moscow should take as much advantage as possible of bilateral relations’ huge potential, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said during talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. He agreed with Lavrov that Japan and Russia had a huge potential to boost relations. "This is why we should build relations that would allow us to take as much advantage as possible of this potential," he noted. The Japanese top diplomat pointed to the successes Tokyo and Moscow had achieved in 2018. "In the past several months, a double taxation avoidance agreement entered into force, visa restrictions for Russian tourist groups were eased," he said, adding that "besides, bilateral economic ties have been steadily progressing." The Japanese foreign minister also stressed that the Moscow meeting would focus on the peace treaty issue. "Today, the first in a series of meetings is taking place that we will hold as the officials responsible for the negotiation process at the order of our leaders who agreed to speed the process up, going beyond our previous position," he said. In November 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Singapore and agreed that the two countries would speed up peace treaty talks. They announced a new peace treaty mechanism at a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina’s Buenos Aires in December 2018. The two leaders instructed their foreign ministers to oversee the mechanism’s operation. Monday’s Moscow meeting is the first one held in accordance with those agreements. Read more