MOSCOW, February 7. /TASS/. Moscow and Tokyo are in close contact on the peace agreement, but no specific dates of the talks between the countries’ top diplomats have been reported yet, a source in the Japanese embassy in Moscow told TASS on Monday.
"Japan and Russia are regularly maintaining diplomatic contacts at various levels. At the same time, no specific dates of the next meetings of the two countries’ foreign ministers have been reported so far," the diplomatic service noted.
Earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that Tokyo sought to hold persistent consultations with Russia aiming to conclude a peace treaty based on all previously reached agreements and regret that this issue had not been settled yet.
For decades, Moscow and Tokyo 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 key 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. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stated that Moscow’s sovereignty over the islands is enshrined in international law and cannot be called into question.