By Ankit Panda
Shinzo Abe and Vladimir Putin will plan to meet on the sidelines of international summits in November 2015.
According to Japanese government sources, a meeting between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Vladimir Putin of Russia may take shape this November. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Abe and Putin spoke on the phone and agreed to meet on the sidelines of upcoming international conferences, including the Group of 20 nations (G20) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting (APEC). Both conferences are scheduled for November. The sideline meetings will set the ground for a proper leaders summit between the Japanese and Russian leaders, possibly later this year.
Relations between Russia and Japan are tense, owing in part to the general slump in relations between Russia and the West. Russia was expelled from the G8 for its annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine last year. Russia remains under economic sanctions from the United States, the European Union, and Japan for its actions in Eastern Europe. Tokyo has been reluctant to pursue an independent foreign policy toward Russia, and Abe has largely toed the same line as his counterparts in the West. Specifically, the controversial shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 last summer forced Tokyo’s hand to impose sanctions on Russia. At the recent meeting of the G7 in Germany, Abe tried to play off European concerns about Russia’s actions in eastern Ukraine — where Moscow supports rebels against the Ukrainian government — to elicit similar attention on China’s actions in the South and East China Seas.
Read the full story at The Diplomat