NAGASAKI (Sputnik) — The delegation of the Federation Council, headed by Matvienko, arrived on Tuesday on a three-day official visit in Japan. On Thursday, the Russian parliamentarians are in Nagasaki and plan to visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, which commemorates the bombing of the city by the United States in 1945. The upper house speaker has stated that the Nagasaki Prefecture is a major industrial region which is interesting to Russia in terms of economic cooperation.
"The governor and mayor of Nagasaki have invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Nagasaki during his December visit. I… conveyed the appreciation of the invitation to the leaders of the prefecture and the city of Nagasaki. However, as the program of the visit is very tight, he will not be able to visit this time, but he said that he will certainly visit the city at the first opportunity," Matvienko said.
Putin is due to visit Japan on December 15 amid warming relations between the two countries. In September, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took part in the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, during which he held three-hour talks with the Russian president. One of the outcomes of the meeting was the announcement of Putin's upcoming visit to Japan. Russian-Japanese relations had taken a hit when Japan joined Western anti-Russian sanctions in 2014 over Moscow's alleged role in the Ukrainian crisis.
