NAGATO: Russia and Japan kick off a summit Thursday aimed at reaching a deal over a group of small islands that have prevented the countries from formally ending their World War II hostilities.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will host Russian President Vladimir Putin in the former’s ancestral city of Nagato in hopes of achieving a breakthrough over the territory off Japan’s northern coast seized by Soviet troops in 1945.
The four islands are known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan, and the dispute has been a thorn in relations for more than seven decades.
Abe would …read more
Source: The Manila Times
