Majority of Japan’s Voters Expect Progress at Territorial Dispute Talks

Almost a two-third majority of Japanese voters expect the territorial dispute talks between Tokyo and Moscow to progress, a poll revealed Monday, after the leaders of Russia and Japan met to discuss the issue in Russia’s Vladivostok.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the survey by the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, 62 percent of the respondents said they believed a progress in the negotiations was possible, while 31 percent of voters said they did not expect the talks to yield results.

Over 1,000 people took part in the survey, carried out over the weekend.

The poll comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met on Friday and Saturday on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum. The two leaders discussed a number of issues, including the signing of a peace treaty and the disputed islands in the Sea of Okhotsk, and agreed to continue bilateral contacts.

Japan and Russia have never signed a permanent peace treaty after World War II due to a disagreement over four islands, which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan the Northern Territories. The disputed islands were claimed by Soviet forces at the end of the war.