Toshimitsu Motegi also expects to “work out the date of the visit at the diplomatic level”.
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi during a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov invited him to visit the country when the opportunity arises in light of the proliferation of the new coronavirus. He made this statement on Friday at the parliamentary committee on Okinawa and “northern territories”.
“Although it is impossible to hold a face-to-face meeting now, I said in a conversation with Minister Lavrov that I would like him to visit Japan when the situation [with the coronavirus] improves”, – said the head of the ministry. He also noted that he expects “to work out the date of the visit at the diplomatic level”. However, he did not specify when this conversation took place. The last time about the telephone conversations between the foreign ministers of the two countries was reported on May 28.
Moscow and Tokyo have been holding consultations on the development of a peace treaty as a result of the Second World War with interruptions since the middle of the last century. The main obstacle to its conclusion was the issue of the southern part of the Kuril. In 1945, the entire archipelago was included in the Soviet Union, but the Japanese side disputes the belonging of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of currently uninhabited islands, which in Japan is called Habomai. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stressed that Russia’s sovereignty over them, which has the appropriate international legal framework, is beyond doubt.
Last November, on the margins of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Nagoya, Russian Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the U.S.-Japanese military and political alliance is creating obstacles to the conclusion of a peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo. According to him, the Japanese side was given a list of specific security concerns of the Russian Federation, which arise in connection with the existence and permanent strengthening of this alliance.