Russian-Japanese Peace Treaty Talks Not At Impasse - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

Muhammad Irfan Published August 15, 2019 | 01:46 PM

While Tokyo is still refusing to recognize Russia's sovereignty over the Kuril islands, established as a result of World War II, Russian-Japanese talks on eventually signing a permanent peace treaty are not at an impasse, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday

SOLNECHNOGORSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th August, 2019) While Tokyo is still refusing to recognize Russia's sovereignty over the Kuril islands, established as a result of World War II, Russian-Japanese talks on eventually signing a permanent peace treaty are not at an impasse, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday.

"The problem is that our Japanese colleagues do not want to recognize the results of World War II, and this prevents us from signing the peace treaty. I don't think that this is a dead-locked situation. We are guided by orders that the president gives us as a result of his talks with the Japanese prime minister.

These orders set the objective to continue developing relations with Japan in all spheres," Lavrov said at an educational forum for the Russian youth, held in the Moscow region.

Russian-Japanese relations have long been complicated by the fact that the two nations have not signed a permanent peace treaty as there are still contradictions over a group of four Kuril islands that Russia has sovereignty over, but that are also claimed by Japan.