Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to attend the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok in September this year, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Monday.
During G20 summit in Japan’s Osaka in late June, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed hope to see Abe at the EEF.
“The Eastern Economic Forum will be held in September, and the possibility of the prime minister participating in it, if circumstances permit, is being worked out,” Suga said at a press conference in Tokyo.
According to Suga, the leaders of the two countries need to meet in person and discuss existing problems.
Russia and Japan have not signed a permanent peace treaty after the end of World War II mainly due to the dispute over the Kuril Islands — referred to as the Southern Kurils by Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan — which remains one of the main stumbling blocks in the peace talks.
In November, Abe and Putin agreed to speed up the negotiations on the long-pending peace agreement, but there has been little progress on the issue ever since. Moscow and Tokyo held a number of the so-called 2+2 format talks between ministers of foreign affairs and defense. In June, the two leaders discussed the issue again during the G20 summit in Osaka. Some of the results include launching joint economic projects on the disputed islands and arranging the visit of former Japanese residents of the Kuril Islands to the tombs of their relatives.
The fifth annual EEF is scheduled to take place from September 4-6.
The first EEF was held in 2015 at the initiative of the Russian president. The event is aimed at developing relations among Russian businesses, and attracting national and international investors to Russia’s Far East.
