On Nov. 14, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Singapore on the sideline of the East Asian Summit. Following the meeting, he announced that the two leaders had agreed to accelerate talks on concluding a peace treaty that would be based on the 1956 Japan-Soviet joint declaration.
Following the prime minister's announcement, Foreign Minister Taro Kono met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Nov. 23 and agreed to support the leaders-level effort to accelerate bilateral negotiations for the peace treaty. The two foreign ministers also agreed to arrange a meeting between Abe and Putin when both leaders visit Argentina this weekend to attend the Group of 20 summit.
This could signal a dramatic change of position on the part of Abe, who, despite his effort to extend an olive branch to Putin, including inviting him to his hometown in Yamaguchi Prefecture in December 2016, had been steadfast in maintaining the position of his predecessors — that the Northern Territories issue would have to be addressed prior to Japan concluding a peace treaty with Russia.