Putin to meet with Japanese top diplomat Kishida

MOSCOW, December 2. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday, the Kremlin press service said. "Putin will receive Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who will be on a working visit in Russia for talks with [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov," the Kremlin said in a statement. The Japanese top diplomat’s visit will "summarize a series of bilateral contacts in political, economic, humanitarian and other spheres in 2016 and will become the final stage of preparations for the Russian president’s official visit to Japan," the statement reads. The visit is scheduled for December 15-16. Putin mentioned ties with Japan during his annual address to the Federal Assembly Thursday, saying that Russia expects them to progress. He also welcomed Tokyo’s determination to develop economic ties with Russia and launch joint programs. The Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, earlier told TASS that the possibility of signing a peace treaty with Japan is currently being discussed at the level of experts. Economic relations between Russia and Japan have seen considerable enlivening in the recent period. In early November, Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hiroshige Seko, who is in charge of economic relations with Russia, paid a visit to Moscow. During his stay in the Russian capital, he said the two countries had chosen about 30 priority projects for cooperation to be materialized by mid-December. Russia and Japan have no peace treaty signed after World War II. The settlement of this problem inherited by Russia’s diplomacy from the Soviet Union is hampered by the years-long dispute over the four islands of Russia’s Southern Kurils - Shikotan, Habomai, Iturup and Kunashir, which Japan calls its northern territories. In 1956, the USSR and Japan signed a Joint Declaration thus re-establishing bilateral diplomatic, trade and other kinds of relations after World War II. According to the document, the USSR unilaterally expressed readiness to return the Shikotan and Hamobai islands as a gesture of good will, but only after signing a peace treaty. Read more