MOSCOW, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono will visit Russia on Thursday and Friday for negotiations on a post-World War II peace treaty, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday.
The third round of Russian-Japanese talks on a peace treaty will be held on Friday as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed in November 2018 to accelerate the process, it said.
Both sides will discuss issues on the global and regional agenda, as well as Russian-Japanese cooperation in the international arena, the ministry said in a statement.
"Bilateral relations continue to evolve," it said, recalling that Putin and Abe met five times over the past year and foreign ministers of the two countries are in constant contact, together with interactions at other levels.
In his latest trip to Russia in January 2019, Abe failed to reach a major consensus with Putin on the decades-old territorial disputes which have mired the peace treaty talks.
Moscow and Tokyo have yet to sign a postwar peace treaty due to their rival claims to four Pacific islands, called Southern Kuril Islands in Russia and Northern Territories in Japan, the pre-war owner.
The two countries are currently holding consultations on joint economic activities on the islands in five areas, namely aquaculture, greenhouses, tourism, wind energy, and waste recycling. They view the cooperation as a step toward a peace treaty.
