Japan, Russia to continue peace treaty talks up to Abe-Putin summit

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov agreed Saturday to continue talks on the decades-old issue of concluding a post-World War II peace treaty up to the summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin later this month in Japan.


"It's not easy to bring closer the principal positions of the parties, the problem is complicated," Lavrov said at a joint press conference following talks with Kishida in Moscow, however, underscoring the difficulty in resolving the territorial dispute over the Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islands.

Lavrov also said there should not be excessive expectations for immediate progress in settling the issue and that bilateral work will continue and be reported to the two leaders who will meet on Dec. 15 and 16 in Japan, he said.
==Kyodo

3/12/16

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