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![Abe, right, is hoping he and Putin can resolve a 71-year old territorial dispute when they meet in Japan on Thursday [Xinhua]](http://thebricspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Abe-Sochi-Putin-e1462651741571.jpg)
Abe, right, is hoping he and Putin can resolve a 71-year old territorial dispute when they meet in Japan on Thursday [Xinhua]
The 71-year territorial dispute stemming from the final days of World War II had figured prominently between Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their previous meetings, but Peskov warned that “it cannot be resolved in one go”.
A peace treaty has eluded both countries ever since Russian troops seized four Japanese islands – known as Kuril (or Kurilskiye Ostrova in Russian) – in the summer of 1945.
There have been stumbling blocks which hindered resolution of the dispute in the past. Russia says it wants to sign a peace treaty before resolving the Kuril Islands dispute.
Japan, on the other hand, wants the islands issue resolved before agreeing to sign a peace treaty.
But Peskov says there need to be extensive and complex negotiations before the issue is resolved.
Putin will arrive in Japan on Thursday “with a bunch of concrete topics on social and economic cooperation between the two countries,” Peskov told reporters.
Last month, Japanese Trade Minister Hiroshige Seko and Russian Far East Development Minister Alexander Galushka agreed to jointly work on projects in Russia’s far eastern regions.
Russia’s far eastern regions lag behind in development and Moscow is looking to use Japanese companies to upgrade infrastructure in that area.
For its part, Tokyo is hoping that its joint projects and closer economic cooperation with Moscow will ease discussion on territorial disputes the two countries have had since the end of World War II.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
