TOKYO, August 29. /TASS/. Relations between Japan and Russia got a boost under incumbent Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2012 words about the need to reach a hikiwake (a judo term for a draw) on the territorial dispute, Senior Research Fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation Taisuke Abiru told TASS on Saturday.

The expert pointed out that Abe’s government indeed sought to make a peace treaty with Russia. "The important thing is that, from Japan’s standpoint, the making of a peace treaty should involve a solution to the territorial dispute," Abiru added.

Abe announced at a press conference on Friday that he was stepping down for health reasons.

 

Peace treaty issue

 

Since the mid-20th century, Russia and Japan have been holding consultations in order to clinch a peace treaty as a follow-up to World War II. The southern Kuril Islands issue remains the sticking point. In 1945, the whole archipelago was handed over to the Soviet Union. Tokyo laid claims to Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and a group of uninhabited islands referred to as Habomai in Japan.

In November 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting in Singapore and agreed that Moscow and Tokyo would speed up peace treaty talks based on the 1956 Joint Declaration. The document ended the state of war and said that the Soviet government was ready to hand Shikotan Island and a group of small islands over to Japan on condition that Tokyo would take control of them once a peace treaty was signed.