Deputy of the Japanese Renaissance Party Muneo Suzuki also said that the Prime Minister of Japan called 2021 an important year for relations between Tokyo and Moscow
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga looks forward to meeting personally with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Democrat Joseph Biden, who announced his victory in the US presidential election, as soon as possible. Kyodo News Agency reported that this was announced on Thursday after the meeting with Suga by Japan Renaissance Party deputy Muneo Suzuki, who is responsible for the dialogue between Tokyo and Moscow.
“I would like to carefully consider the schedule for these meetings as soon as possible”, – Suzuki quoted the Prime Minister as saying. He also noted that Suga said next year was important for relations between Tokyo and Moscow, as October would mark the 65th anniversary of the signing of the 1956 Joint Soviet-Japanese Declaration.
Suzuki is actively engaged in dialogue with Russia. He was considered to be an informal adviser to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Japan-Russia relations.
Since the middle of the last century, Moscow and Tokyo have been consulting intermittently on the development of a peace treaty following the Second World War. The main obstacle to its conclusion was the issue of the southern part of Kuril. In 1945, the entire archipelago was incorporated into the Soviet Union, but the Japanese side contested the ownership of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the group of islands currently uninhabited, which in Japan is called Habomai. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has repeatedly emphasised that Russian sovereignty over them, which has the appropriate international legal framework, is beyond doubt.