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Signing peace treaty with Russia is Japan’s priority task — politician

Muneo Suzuki said a good relations between of Tokyo and Moscow would benefit global stability

MOSCOW, April 13. /TASS/. The signing of a peace treaty with Moscow is Japan’s most important objective in relations with Russia, a senior Japanese politician told TASS Thursday while on a business visit to Moscow.

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"For Japan, the priority task in relations with Russia is to sign a peace treaty," said Muneo Suzuki, the founder and leader of the the New Party Daichi and an unofficial adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Russian affairs.

"The fact that great powers like Russia and Japan have no peace treaty keeps surprising me. I’m sure that Russia, the world’s number one energy power, and Japan, which has the world’s highest potential in applied technologies, could join efforts, and it would be a great contribution to global stability," Suzuki said.

He said that "the warm relationship of trust" between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has laid a solid foundation for bilateral relations.

"Prime Minister Abe is scheduled to visit Russia and meet President Putin on April 27-28. If we look at the dynamics of the previous 16 meetings of the leaders of our countries, we will see that the degree of trust between Abe and Putin grows with each meeting," the Japanese politician said.

According to Suzuki, the people of Japan appreciate the popularity of Japanese culture in Russia and the Russian president’s fondness for it.

"President Putin practices judo, and it is very important for the Japanese people that Putin understands the way things are done in judo and in Japan in general: everything begins with a polite bow to show mutual respect, and everything ends with a polite bow as well," he said.

"The Russian leader has a grasp of these communication standards, typical for the people of Japan. I think that it is important that we have this kind of understanding - this common approach at the cultural level, at the level of friendly relations, at the level of trust," the Japanese politician went on.

According to Suzuki, Moscow and Tokyo have entered the period of good relations, that followed the "decade of vacuum" in bilateral relations under former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.

‘We overcame this vacuum when incumbent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was re-elected to the post. We have again returned to good bilateral relations as was under the leadership of Ryutaro Hashimoto (1996-1998), Keizo Obuchi (1998-2000) and Yoshiro Mori (2000-2001)," Suzuki said.

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