Japan’s Abe Expects Meeting With Putin at G20 Summit to Be Productive - Lawmaker

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to hold an effective meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin within the framework of the forthcoming G20 summit, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev told reporters in Tokyo on Thursday after a meeting with the head of the Japanese government.

TOKYO (Sputnik) — Kosachev heads the delegation of the Federation Council’s Advisory Board on assisting Russian-Japanese interparliamentary and interregional cooperation during its visit to Japan.

"The prime minister of Japan noted the importance of the parliamentary dimension of Russian-Japanese cooperation, wished the meeting participants to focus on specific results and search for new forms of interaction, primarily at the regional level, and also expressed the hope that the planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the forthcoming G20 summit will be meaningful and effective," Kosachev said.

The G20 summit is scheduled to be held in Hamburg on July 7-8.

The most recent meeting between Putin and Abe took place on April 27 and was called constructive by both leaders. Putin promised organize a trip for a group of Japanese officials and businessmen to the Southern Kuril islands, while Abe noted he was ready to move forward with the matter surrounding the signing a Russia-Japan peace treaty.

Russian-Japanese relations have long been complicated by the fact that the two nations have never signed a permanent peace treaty after World War II ended. This was due to a disagreement over a group of islands, which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan the Northern Territories, which consist of four territories: Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai.