Japanese PM vows to resolve territorial dispute with Russia

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday pledged to resolve a long-standing territorial dispute between Japan and Russia while he is in office. "I am determined that I should somehow resolve this problem while prime minister. I will do my best to fulfill a historic mission while deepening trust relationship with President Putin," Abe told parliament committee. He was referring to the dispute over four Russian-held islands, known as the Northern Territories by Japan and the southern Kurils by Russia, that lie north of Japan's main northern island of Hokkaido. Abe's remarks came after his summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in Sochi. It was the fifth meeting between the two leaders since Abe took office in December 2012. Abe said he was able to share with Putin an awareness of the need to end the abnormal situation in which no peace treaty has been signed between the two countries since WWII ended 68 years ago. The two leaders are scheduled to have another summit at the Group of Eight meeting in Sochi in June and Putin will visit Japan this autumn. The territorial dispute has prevented the two nations from concluding the peace treaty to formally end WWII and discouraged investment in Russia by Japan. In 1855, Japan and Russia signed a treaty that defined the four islands as Japanese territory. However, the Soviet Union seized the four islands in 1945 after Japan's surrender in World War II, and expelled their Japanese residents. Tokyo insists the Northern Territories are not part of the Kuril chain of islands it renounced under the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty with the Allies, which the Soviet Union never signed.