Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of a laborious work that was still to come: there was no rapprochement in the talks on a peace treaty between Russia and Japan in the Kremlin. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saw a task that was not easy to solve.
The main issue is the Kuril Islands. They had been occupied in 1945 by the then Soviet Union at the end of World War II, Japan demands back. Therefore, even after almost 75 years there is no peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo. The Kuril Islands connect the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula with the Japanese island of Hokkaido in the Pacific.
Before the meeting, several demonstrators were arrested outside the Japanese Embassy in Moscow. The protest was directed against possible plans to return the Kuril Islands to Japan. Several people, including one Communist deputy, were detained, the Tass agency reported.
Putin and Abe agreed last year to intensify talks on a peace treaty. "We reaffirmed our interest in signing this document," said the Kremlin chief, according to Russian media. The basis is a Japanese-Soviet agreement of 1956, which provides for a possible return of two of the four islands. A week ago, talks at the level of foreign ministers had already failed to bring about a rapprochement.