Moscow Hopes Both Japanese Parliament Houses' Heads to Visit Russia in 2017

Moscow hopes heads of both houses of the Japanese parliament will visit Russia this year, Russian Ambassador to Japan Evgeny Afanasiev told Sputnik on Thursday.

TOKYO (Sputnik) — In June 2016, then-chairman of the State Duma Sergey Naryshkin paid a visit to Japan with a delegation of Russian lawmakers. Speaker of the upper house of Russia's parliament Valentina Matvienko visited Japan in November 2016. However, Tokyo has not sent its lawmakers in a return visit so far, Afanasiev noted.

"We hope that this year the invitations [to visit Russia] to the heads of upper and lower houses of the Japanese parliament will be accepted," the Russian ambassador to Tokyo said.

"There is a very good idea, coordinated between the two sides, for the senators, parliamentarians to oversee and support specific cooperation projects, including on the regional level," the diplomat added.

Since 2016, the Russian-Japanese relations have been experiencing a dynamic development. In mid-December 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Japan where the sides signed an unprecedented number of documents on bilateral cooperation.

In January, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would visit Russia in April to discuss the peace treaty with Russia. Abe's second visit is scheduled for September.