The sides also touched on humanitarian exchanges involving former Japanese residents of the territories
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi held a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday, TASS reported, citing the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
“The two sides discussed negotiations on a peace treaty, issues related to joint economic activities in the southern Kuril Islands, as well as humanitarian exchanges involving former Japanese residents of these territories”, – the statement said.
Moscow and Tokyo have been holding consultations for decades with the aim of working out a peace treaty following World War II. The main obstacle to this remains disagreement over rights to the southern part of the Kuril Islands. After the war, the entire archipelago was incorporated into the Soviet Union, but Japan disputes ownership of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of adjacent small uninhabited islands. At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stressed that Russian sovereignty over these territories, which has the appropriate international legal framework, is not in question.