Putin Showed Private Cabinet To Abe During Talks In Kremlin - Japanese Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd January, 2019) Russian President Vladimir Putin brought Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to his personal office in the Kremlin as a part of their meeting on Tuesday, Japanese Foreign Ministry's press secretary Takeshi Osuga said.

"President Putin took Prime Minister Abe and his interpreter, brought them to his personal office and came around his office for about five minutes. After that they returned to the meeting room, and a small-group meeting began," Osuga told a briefing.

According to the press-secretary, the overall meeting took about three hours: tete-a-tete talks between the two leaders lasted for some 50 minutes, small-group talks before and after the tete-a-tete meeting took some 60 minutes, while the working lunch that followed the talks lasted for some 70 minutes.

"We were told by Prime Minister Abe that during this tete-a-tete meeting he could have a very frank exchange of view with President Putin on the issue of the peace treaty," Osuga indicated.

Earlier on Tuesday, the leaders of Russia and Japan met in the Russian capital to launch talks on a peace treaty between the two countries. Following the meeting Putin and Abe stated their readiness to proceed with peace talks in the future, stressing that tedious work was yet to be done.