Despite ongoing pressure on Russia over its annexation of Crimea in 2014, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday welcomed President Vladimir Putin — the first visit by a Russian leader in around 11 years — as he sought to make a breakthrough in a postwar territorial row that has left the countries without a peace treaty.
Abe is an outlier among G-7 leaders, spending a good deal of political capital in efforts to forge a personal rapport with the Russian leader as part of wider hopes to settle the territorial dispute over four islands off Hokkaido — Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group — that were seized by the Soviets near the end of World War II.
Yet the prime minister's omotenashi (hospitality), offering Putin a hot springs experience in Abe's ancestral town of Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture, was somewhat marred from the start when the Russian leader arrived almost two hours late. But Abe that said he was glad to welcome Putin to his hometown and that Putin will fully enjoy the onsen spa experience.