The Presidential Administration of Russia
The peace treaty between Japan and the Russia will help to endorse peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced this on September 25 at the UN General Assembly in New York, TASS reports.
"We need to settle the territorial issue and ink a peace treaty. When the peace treaty between Japan and Russia becomes a reality, peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia will gain a more definite basis," he said. Abe noted that the situation in Japan-Russia relations remained abnormal, since the peace treaty between the countries had not existed for more than 70 years. "Together with Russian President Vladimir Putin, we are working to get out of a stumbling block which our countries face," he added.
The head of the Japanese government also said that he expected to hold a bilateral meeting with the Russian leader soon.
At the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum, Putin
invited Japan to conclude a peace treaty before the end of the year without any preconditions. He also noted that it was possible to prescribe in treaty that Moscow and Tokyo are intended to settle territorial disputes.
After that, at a meeting with Japanese businessmen, Abe said that it is important for Japan and Russia to understand the residents of both countries on the issue of the peace treaty and prepare an atmosphere for signing it. The prime minister also outlined Tokyo's position on this issue which is aimed to conclude peace after solving the territorial issue.
Moscow and Tokyo have been consulting for many decades working out a peace treaty after the Second World War.
The main obstacle to this is the dispute over the southern part of the Kurile islands: after the war the Soviet Union took control over the entire archipelago, but Tokyo disputes the ownership of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of islands called Habomai in Japan.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly stated that Russia's sovereignty over them falls under the international legal framework and is not doubted.
Russkiy Mir
