Japanese Ex-PM to Consult Moscow Gov't on Industry Projects

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will help Moscow Center of the Industry Restructuring, which consults the city of Moscow on industry policy, to search for potential collaborators in Japan, especially in the technological centers, Igor Titov, the head of the center, said Friday.

TOKYO (Sputnik) — Titov took part in the Russian-Japanese forum which coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Japan and his talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"Ahead of the meeting of the leaders of the two countries, we signed an agreement on the collaboration with Yukio Hatoyama, the head of the Center for East Asian Studies. We will basically collaborate on the exchange of the information and the search for new joint projects," Titov told RIA Novosti.

According to Titov, Hatoyama also agreed to counsel the center, which belongs to the Moscow department of science, industry policy and entrepreneurship, on the establishment of relations with Japanese technological centers.

Hatoyama served as Japan's prime minister in 2009-2010. The former prime minister has been trying to urge Japan and the international community to lift anti-Russian sanctions since the 2015 visit to the Crimean peninsula.

Russia has been targeted by several rounds of sanctions inflicted by Brussels, Washington and their allies in light of Crimea’s reunification with Russia in 2014 and due to Moscow's alleged involvement in the internal Ukrainian conflict, a claim that Russia has repeatedly denied.