TOKYO (Sputnik) – Earlier in the day, Abe held talks with head of Yamaguchi’s election commission, where he expressed desire to meet with the Russian leader, Kyodo news agency reported.
In May, after the meeting of Putin and Abe in the Russian resort city of Sochi, Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, said that Putin's visit to Japan was likely to take place at the end of 2016. According to Japanese media, the time and the place of the next meeting were also discussed during Sochi's meeting.
Current relations between Russia and Japan are overshadowed by tensions that emerged after the 2014 crisis in Ukraine and Japan’s decision to impose sanctions against Russia, along with Western states, in connection with Crimea’s reunification with Russia and due to Moscow's alleged interference in the Ukrainian conflict, which Russia resolutely refutes.
