(May 16th, 2016) The Russian government-linked news service Sputnik News reported that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed his confidence in what the service called a ‘’breakthrough’’ in relations with Vladimir Putin’s government.
Mr. Abe said that talks on various issues would continue between the nations. Key among them is the status of the Kuril Islands (which the Japanese call “The Northern Territories’’), which the former Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of World War II.
Indeed, a formal peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo has yet to be signed, over seven decades after the end of the war, at least in part because of Japanese anger over the seizure of the Kurils.