Tokyo, Sep 17: Japan and Russia will create favourable environment and conditions to ink a peace accord, Moscow’s security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said on Tuesday, post concluding a meeting with Shigeru Kitamura, the head of Japan’s national security council secretariat.
Addressing journalists, Patrushev said, “We have touched upon the issues that concern Japan and Russia, first of all in terms of security, and agreed that we will decrease [the number of] issues where there is lack of understanding, work on aligning our positions and thus increase mutual trust.”
When asked whether the two officials discussed a peace pact between Tokyo and Moscow, Patrushev said: “The treaty must be agreed.” He added, “We have to create conditions for that, this is what we will be doing,” according to Sputnik news reports.
Patrushev met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo and discussed bilateral cooperation, as well as, regional and international security.
“The Japanese prime minister received the Russian security council secretary in Tokyo. Nikolai Patrushev and Shinzo Abe discussed a wide range of issues of Russian-Japanese cooperation in various fields, as well as issues of international and regional security,” the Russian Security Council said in an official statement.
Japan and Russia have not inked any permanent peace pact after World War II ended with a spat over the southern Kuril islands as one of the focal stumbling blocks in the bilateral peace talks.