Russia has requested Japan's support for agricultural exports and energy development as part of intensifying negotiations on bilateral economic cooperation ahead of President Vladimir Putin's talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in December, according to sources.
Some of the projects on Russia's 68-point list for Japanese cooperation are politically sensitive, such as developing areas near the Crimean Peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine and extending the Trans-Siberian Railway to Hokkaido, the sources said Tuesday.
The action by Moscow is regarded as an attempt to set a hurdle for Abe that is difficult to overcome. Abe is eager to resolve the territorial dispute over the four Russian-held islets off Hokkaido that were seized at the end of World War II by Soviet troops. They are known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the Southern Kurils.