Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Friday to advance talks on carrying out joint economic activities on the Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islands off Hokkaido.
Abe and Putin agreed to hold a vice foreign ministerial meeting in late August in Moscow as part of an effort to craft specific projects for such activities, a senior Japanese official told reporters after the two leaders spoke on the fringes of the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
Japan hopes the joint activities, once started, will pave the way for addressing a decades-long territorial dispute with Russia that has prevented the two from signing a peace treaty to formally end World War II.