Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a conciliatory tone before talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a territorial dispute that\u2019s prevented the countries from signing a World War II peace treaty.<\/p>\n
Resolving the conflict over four islands occupied by the Soviet Union in the final days of the war should be part of \u201csetting the stage for the development of inter-governmental relations for the long term,\u201d Putin said in an interview on Thursday as he prepared to meet with Abe at the Eastern Economic Forum in Russia\u2019s Pacific port city of Vladivostok on Friday.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re not talking about some exchange or some sale,\u201d Putin said. \u201cWe are talking about finding a solution where neither of the parties would feel defeated or a loser.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two leaders, especially Abe, seem keen to show that momentum is building toward a settlement on the island spat. Abe said after the talks that he and Putin had a deep discussion about a peace treaty and that he has a good feeling about making progress with a new approach, according to the Kyodo news service. They\u2019ll meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru in November and will continue talks when Putin visits Abe\u2019s home prefecture of Yamaguchi in southern Japan on Dec. 15, Kyodo reported.<\/p>\n
Russia is seeking warmer relations with Japan to woo investment as progress on deepening business ties with China has stalled. The two leaders are discussing the islands, called the Southern Kurils by Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan, for the second time this year after Abe met Putin in Sochi in May, snubbing an appeal by U.S. President Barack Obama not to visit.
\nWhile \u201cwe don\u2019t trade in territories,\u201d Russia \u201cwould very much like to find a solution to this problem with our Japanese friends,\u201d Putin said. If it \u201ccan reach a similarly high level of trust\u201d with Japan as it now enjoys with China \u201cthen we can find some sort of compromise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
James Brown, an associate professor at Temple University in Tokyo who published a book this year on the territorial dispute, said Putin\u2019s comments suggested \u201cthe status quo suits Russia quite well.\u201d
\n\u201cWhile he\u2019s happy to keep talking, he\u2019s in no rush to reach any conclusion,\u201d Brown said by phone.<\/p>\n
The final days of the war saw a victorious Soviet Union attack Japan in 1945. It grabbed a number of disputed territories, including the Kurils and Sakhalin Island, just north of Japan.
\nThe signing of a 1956 treaty almost resolved the dispute until \u201cthe Japanese side refused to adhere to it and then the Soviet Union basically nullified\u201d the deal, Putin said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s closer than in 1956 but, in any case, we resumed a dialogue on this subject.\u201d
\nYoshihide Suga, Japan\u2019s top government spokesman, said Friday that its basic stance on the dispute hasn\u2019t changed. \u201cJapan will go into negotiations making it clear that we seek the conclusion of a peace accord and the return of the four islands,\u201d he said. It was \u201cabnormal\u201d that the nations had yet to sign a peace treaty, he said.<\/p>\n
The Kyodo news agency reported before the talks that Abe and Putin would discuss the potential return to Japan of two islands.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Abe created a new post of minister for economic cooperation with Russia — the only portfolio in his cabinet to name a specific country. Kyodo reported this week that Japan is considering support to develop Russia\u2019s Far East even if progress isn\u2019t made in the islands dispute.
\n\u201cAbe is so enthusiastic about relations with Russia,\u201d Temple University\u2019s Brown said. \u201cHe\u2019s using economic cooperation to shore up ties with Russia in the hope that over the long term he\u2019ll get a deal on the islands.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s \u201cvery important on the political level to support the intentions of the business community to develop mutual contacts,\u201d Putin told Abe as the talks began. Japan \u201cas a neighbor\u201d is ready \u201cto make maximum effort for developing\u201d cooperation with Russia in the region, Abe replied, according to a Kremlin transcript.<\/p>\n
Russia would welcome Japanese investment in electricity generator RusHydro PJSC and there are \u201cno political restrictions,\u201d while it\u2019s also ready to develop port capacity for sales of liquified natural gas to Japan, Putin earlier told business leaders in Vladivostok. It will \u201csit down and think properly about the logistics\u201d if Japan is interested in gas-swap deals involving the Yamal LNG project in the Arctic, he said.
\nPutin will follow the Abe meeting with a trip to the Group of 20 summit in China. He\u2019ll be eager to show that Russia hasn\u2019t been left isolated by U.S. and European Union sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine, which together with the collapse in oil prices tipped his country into its worst recession in two decades.
\nTrade with China, Russia\u2019s biggest single partner, contracted 28 percent to $63.6 billion last year, missing the countries\u2019 joint target of $100 billion. Turnover with Japan, Russia\u2019s eighth-largest partner, declined by almost 31 percent to $21.3 billion and commodities accounted for more than three-quarters of Russian exports by value, according to the customs service in Moscow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a conciliatory tone before talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a territorial dispute that\u2019s prevented the countries from signing a World War II peace treaty. Resolving the conflict over four islands occupied by the Soviet Union in the final days of the war should be part of \u201csetting the stage for the development… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}