Fumio Kishida arrived in Moscow on a working visit after an absence of nearly two years and interrupted contacts, with Tokyo's territorial claims and disregard of Russian sovereignty over the Southern Kurils as a background.
The restoration of direct contacts with Japan gives a reason to think of an improvement of bilateral relations, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during the protocolar greeting to Kishida.
Lavrov said that the resumption of the approach gives hope to start working together in order to solve the complex situation in the Moscow-Tokyo dialogue, which, according to the Minister, has no direct relation with the bilateral ties.
According to Lavrov the complicated Russian-Japanese situation was born under the influence of factors beyond bilateral ties.
Along with the issue of bilateral dispute over the Southern Kuril Islands, relations between these countries were severely affected by the support of the Japanese government to the United States and the European Union's sanctions against Russia, under the pretext of the situation in Ukraine and the Crimea issue.
Kishida said about the intention of analyzing with his host the problems on the signing of the peace treaty, which ended hostilities between the former Soviet Union and the former militarist Japan, during World War II.
The peace treaty has been pending since the decade of the 50s of the past century due to the reluctance of the Japanese authorities to recognize the historical results of that conflagration.
Lavrov insisted on Moscow's hopes to reverse the difficult period of relations with Tokyo, a neighbor country and an important partner in the Asia-Pacific region, stressed the Lavrov as quoted by the news agency TASS.
We have many issues on the agenda, hence it is very important to continue the bilateral dialogue, Kishida said.
The conversations between the Ministers include other topics of the international arena and the situation in Ukraine.
In the official statement of the Foreign Ministry is stated that Kishida's visit to Moscow is called to be the start of a series of bilateral meetings aimed to revive the economic, commercial and business cooperation.
Japan's Foreign Minister will chair the Japanese side of the 11th session of the intergovernmental cooperation commission to be held in Moscow Today.
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