Russia is reluctant to reconvene a meeting on concluding a peace treaty despite repeated requests by Tokyo to speed up the talks ahead of a summit next month between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese government sources said Monday.
But Russia is willing to hold talks on economic cooperation. The Japan-Russia Intergovernmental Committee on Trade and Economic Issues, co-chaired by Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, is to meet Tuesday in Tokyo.
Ahead of the Abe-Putin summit on Dec. 15 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan hopes to advance talks with Russia to resolve a decades-old territorial dispute over Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islets off Hokkaido, and to conclude a peace treaty.