By Shannon Tiezzi
An Abe-Putin meeting on the sidelines of the UNGA again raised hopes for a peace treaty between Japan and Russia.
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama took oblique (but obvious) aim at each other over the Syrian civil war in their respective speeches before the United Nations General Assembly. Putin and Obama also held a tense (though “surprisingly very frank,” according to the Russian leader) meeting Monday afternoon. While all eyes were on those tensions, Putin also held a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – a much more friendly encounter.
Abe and Putin met on the sidelines on the UNGA in New York on September 28. The meeting was expected; on September 25, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that he believes “frank exchanges of views will take place between the two countries’ leaders,” particularly “regarding the peace treaty negotiations, that is, in particular the territorial issue.”
Japan and Russia never formally signed a peace treaty to end World War II, thanks to a lingering territorial dispute over what Russia calls the Kuril Islands and Japan calls the Northern Territories. The then-Soviet Union annexed the islands in the final days of World War II.
When he assumed the office of prime minister for a second time in late 2012, Abe was determined to see movement on the territorial dispute, which would allow for a peace treaty to be signed between their two countries at long last. But diplomatic efforts fell victim to the larger geopolitical situation. After the Russian annexation of Crimea and continued military involvement in eastern Ukraine, Japan felt obligated to support U.S. sanctions on Moscow. That, in turn, poisoned the well of what had been promising signs in Japan-Russia relations. After meeting ten times from 2012 to 2014, Abe and Putin didn’t hold their eleventh meeting until yesterday.
Read the full story at The Diplomat