The Russian and Japanese Foreign Ministries will hold talks on April 15 in Tokyo to discuss joint economic activity on the southern Kuril Islands, Japanese media reported on Friday, citing local diplomatic sources
TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th April, 2019) The Russian and Japanese Foreign Ministries will hold talks on April 15 in Tokyo to discuss joint economic activity on the southern Kuril Islands, Japanese media reported on Friday, citing local diplomatic sources.Japan will be represented by Hideki Uyama, the deputy director-general of the European Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, while Nail Latypov, the deputy director of Consular Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, will attend the talks from the Russian side, according to the Kyodo news agency.
The diplomats will also touch upon the issue of establishing such conditions for the Japanese nationals to visit the southern Kurils that would not go against Tokyo's official position.
The two states agreed to discuss the possibility of joint economic activities on the contested islands during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Japan in December 2016. In February 2017, the Japanese Foreign Ministry established a council for joint economic activities. In 2017 and 2018, the representatives of Japanese government and business circles traveled to the Kuril Islands to study on the spot the prospects for the development of projects in such fields as mariculture, greenhouse farming, tourism, wind power and recycling.
Russian-Japanese relations have long been complicated by the fact that the two nations have not signed a permanent WWII peace treaty as there are still contradictions over a group of four Kuril islands Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai that Russia has sovereignty over, but that are also claimed by Japan.
