Putin, Abe hold talks on Japan-Russia territorial dispute
NAGATO- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin spent much of their first round of talks at a hot springs resort in western Japan on Thursday discussing a territorial dispute that has divided their countries for 70 years.
For Putin, the summit meeting in Nagato city marks his first official visit to a G-7 country since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
Abe invited Putin even though the G-7 nations, including Japan, still have sanctions on Russia. The talks will move to Tokyo on Friday.
Abe said the two leaders talked for three hours, spending about half of the time on the dispute over four islands seized by the former Soviet Union in the closing days of World War II, and a peace treaty officially ending the two countries' wartime hostilities. A major breakthrough is seen as unlikely.
