When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet on Friday on the sidelines of the Far Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, the focus will be on whether their "new approach" to a peace treaty to formally end World War II will come to fruition.
At an informal meeting in May in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, the two leaders agreed to take a new tack to solving the territorial dispute over four islands off Hokkaido called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Kuril Islands in Russia, noting that no progress had been made since the war.
In the closing days of World War II, the then-Soviet Union invaded three islands — Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group after declaring war on Japan on Aug. 9, 1945. The dispute has prevented the two countries from signing a formal peace treaty.