Aso, Medvedev agree to realize Putin's Japan visit early next year

LIMA, Nov. 22 Kyodo -
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed
Saturday to realize a visit to Japan early next year by Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin as part of top-level political dialogue, Japanese officials said.

The two, who met on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim leaders' summit in the
Peruvian capital, also shared the view that Tokyo and Moscow will strive to
advance talks on a decades-old territorial dispute, the officials told
reporters.
Putin's Japan visit was initially planned for this year along with trips by
other high-ranking Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov,
who visited earlier this month.
The Japanese officials said the delay in Putin's visit is probably down to his
schedule. The rescheduled trip, they said, will be one in a series of top-level
political meetings Aso and Medvedev agreed to hold next year.
On the territorial question, Aso was quoted as pointing out that Medvedev's
determination to move forward talks on the issue, expressed in his meeting with
then Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in July, has not necessarily been
reflected in later working-level negotiations.
Medvedev was quoted as replying that he has no intention of leaving the dispute
up to the next generation to resolve. He was also quoted as saying the issue
can be settled if the political will is there.
The two agreed to instruct their officials anew to undertake specific work to
resolve the territorial row and formally end wartime hostilities with a peace
treaty, according to the Japanese officials.
Japan and Russia remain at odds over the sovereignty of a set of islands off
Hokkaido, known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the
Southern Kurils. The islands have been occupied by the Russians since the
closing days of World War II.
In the July talks, Fukuda and Medvedev reaffirmed that both sides will continue
efforts to seek a mutually acceptable resolution to the dispute and conclude a
postwar peace treaty.
On other issues, Aso and Medvedev agreed on the importance of resolving the
issue of North Korea's nuclear ambitions and concurred that the six parties
discussing Pyongyang's denuclearization should put in writing the necessity to
set up a credible regime to verify North Korea's nuclear situation, the
Japanese officials said.
The six countries involved in the denuclearization talks are North and South
Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. A meeting of their chief
delegates is planned for early December to finalize the shape of the
verification regime.
Medvedev was quoted as mentioning some areas in which Moscow wants to cooperate
with Tokyo, including development in the Russian Far East and eastern Siberia,
as well as energy and high-technology development.
==Kyodo