Putin Notes Need To Create Environment For Resolving Russian-Japanese Issues

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published September 12, 2018 | 02:01 PM

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he was not joking about signing a peace treaty with Japan and emphasized the need to create a comfortable environment for settling Moscow's disagreements with Tokyo.

VLADIVOSTOK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th September, 2018) Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he was not joking about signing a peace treaty with Japan and emphasized the need to create a comfortable environment for settling Moscow's disagreements with Tokyo.

Earlier in the day, the Russian president suggested signing a peace treaty between Russia and Japan until the end of the year without any preconditions.

"I did not joke about concluding a treaty without preconditions ... We have agreed with the prime minister [of Japan Shinzo Abe] that we will work together on setting up our joint economic activities. We need to create an environment in which it would be comfortable for us to resolve these issues," Putin said during a plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Russia's Vladivostok.

"We can indicate it in the treaty that we will work on settling all the issues. I am sure that we will do it someday.

We need to get rid of everything that hampers the development of our relations," Putin added.

The president continued by saying that the territorial disputes between Russia and Japan were not fundamental. However, these political and moral disagreements were a very sensitive issue for both countries, Putin added, noting the need to "consider carefully the approaches to the settlement of these issues."

"Look at the Russian map, it is a giant country having the largest territory in the world. And look at these [Kuril] islands ... We will seek a situation that would be comfortable for the settlement of these issues. We want to resolve them and I hope that this will happen someday," Putin stated.

The fourth edition of the EEF kicked off on Tuesday and will be held through Thursday on Russky Island. Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency is the general information partner of the forum.