Okada heads for Russia to meet with Lavrov

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TOKYO, Dec. 27 Kyodo -
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada headed Sunday for Russia to hold talks with his
Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, the first foreign ministerial meeting
between the two countries since the inauguration of a new government in Japan
this fall.
At the meeting Monday, Okada and Lavrov are expected to discuss a long-standing
territorial dispute and the situations concerning Afghanistan and North Korea.
Okada is also expected to meet Sergei Naryshkin, chief of staff of the Russian
Presidential Executive Office.
As the grandson of a former prime minister who signed the 1956 Japan-Soviet
Joint Declaration that led the two countries to resume diplomatic relations,
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who assumed office and launched a new
government in September, has reiterated his eagerness to resolve the
territorial issue.
But so far, there has been no significant progress on the matter.
The territorial dispute involving four Russian-administered islands --
Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group -- has prevented the
two countries from signing a post-World War II peace treaty.
The islands off Hokkaido are known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in
Russia as the Southern Kurils.
==Kyodo