MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has extended Christmas and New Year greetings to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, noting that the development of bilateral cooperation meets the interests of the people of both countries as well as bolsters regional security, the Kremlin press service reported.

"Vladimir Putin reaffirmed his commitment to further contacts with Fumio Kishida and expressed confidence that the constructive Russian-Japanese cooperation would meet the interests of the peoples of Russia and Japan and would contribute to strengthening regional stability and security," the statement said.

Additionally, the Russian leader noted the importance to continue the dialogue between the two countries despite the pandemic. He emphasized that his October 7 phone conversation with the Japanese prime minister was very important in this context since it made it possible "to outline ways for interaction on the bilateral and international agenda." As Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov reported then, the two leaders expressed an interest in continuing dialogue at all levels. According to Kishida, the sides confirmed that they will conduct talks on the peace treaty based on the current agreements, including those reached in Singapore in 2018 following Putin’s meeting with then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The Russian president has also sent his greetings to Abe with whom he met 27 times during Abe’s term as the head of Japan’s government.

Since the middle of the last century, Moscow and Tokyo have been intermittently negotiating a peace agreement following World War II. The main obstacle to its conclusion was the question of the ownership of the southern part of the Kuril ridge. In 1945, the entire archipelago was incorporated into the Soviet Union, but the Japanese side disputes the belonging of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and the group of now uninhabited islands, which in Japan is called Habomai. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stressed that Russian sovereignty over them, which has the appropriate international legal form, is beyond question.

In November 2018, Putin and Abe held a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Singapore and agreed that the two countries would accelerate the pace of the peace negotiations based on the 1956 Joint Declaration. The declaration ended the state of war and said that the Soviet government was ready to hand Shikotan Island and a group of small islands called Habomai over to Japan on condition that Tokyo would take control of them once a peace treaty was signed.

The declaration was ratified by the Russian and Japanese parliaments on December 8, 1956. As the Russian side has repeatedly stated, this document clearly indicates that the ownership issue can be considered only after reaching a peace agreement.