MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Japan and Russia should hurry up and sign a long-overdue peace deal before their current leaders leave office, the vice president of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) said Monday.
A major territorial dispute prevented the two neighboring nations from signing a peace agreement after the end of World War Two. They have been de facto at war for more than 60 years.
"It is regrettable," LDP’s Masahiko Komura said at a meeting with Russia’s lower-house Constitutional Legislation Committee chief Vladimir Pligin. "Our countries are currently headed by strong leaders, so we must make use of this situation and take steps toward a peace deal."
20 September 2015, 06:34 GMT
Komura noted that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had met 12 times over the past four years, in what he said was a sign of friendly personal relations between the two.
Japan lays claims for Russia’s Kuril Islands bordering the Sea of Okhotsk and the Pacific Ocean, called the Northern Territories by Tokyo.
