Russia and Japan Deepening Ties

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Putin Seeks Nuclear Agreement in Japan

By Anatoly Medetsky
The St. Petersburg Times

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will hold talks in Japan on Tuesday aimed at signing a long-delayed deal to supply more nuclear fuel to the country and cooperate in making equipment and building reactors.

Officials are wrapping up preparations for an agreement between the Russian and Japanese governments on nuclear power cooperation that has been in the works since 2007, Putin said in an interview with Japanese news media before his visit to Japan, which is to kick off later Monday.

“We see how successful Japan is in developing high technology,” Putin said in the interview posted on the Cabinet’s web site Sunday. “And, of course, coupling the possibilities of Russia and Japan in these areas, I think, would be very important.”

He added that he thought the countries would sign the nuclear agreement during his visit to Tokyo.

Japan’s ambassador to Moscow, Masaharu Kono, was less optimistic, saying Friday that the countries had yet to reach a final agreement on the matter, Interfax reported.

The deal would open the way for Russia to almost double its nuclear fuel exports to Japan, conduct joint research and create partnerships to make equipment in Russia and pursue reactor-building contracts worldwide. Russia now supplies 15 percent of Japan’s market but is aiming to increase its share to 25 percent in the next few years, Putin said.

Talks took longer than expected to complete, missing deadlines at the end of 2007 and in mid-2008 over Japanese concerns that its technology might be leaked to the Russian defense industry.

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Russia's Putin and Japan's PM Abe to discuss island dispute and energy

Prime Minister Abe meets President Putin for the first top-level visit in a decade with the hope of breaking the stalemate of a territorial dispute dating back to World War II.


Russia's President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a meeting in Moscow on April 29, 2013. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images)

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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday for the nations' first top-level diplomatic visit in a decade.

The two leaders will discuss a territorial dispute dating back to World War II, and focus on new energy deals, as Japan attempts to procure non-nuclear energy supplies after the Fukushima plant disaster.

The leaders' one-on-one talks at the Kremlin will be followed by a meeting between their respective business delegations and a joint news conference.

"I will work on boosting Japan-Russia relations so that this visit will mark a restart in stalled negotiations over a peace treaty," Abe said before flying to Moscow, adding that he would like "to build a trusted personal relationship with President Putin."

Russia and Japan never signed a formal World War II peace treaty, leading in-part to a dispute over four islands seized by Soviet forces during the war.

In 2010, former Russian President and current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev caused a row between the two nations when he visited the islands. Tokyo called the visit an "unforgivable outrage."

It's thought Russia will focus on building economic relations with Japan, and will unlikely relinquish its hold on the islands.

"The Russian side proceeds from the position that dialogue (on a peace treaty) should be held in a calm, respectful atmosphere in parallel with the development of the entire range of Russo-Japanese relations," Putin's press service said.

A 120-person business delegation accompanies Abe to Moscow. Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko told Reuters that a resolution of the territorial dispute would benefit the two nations' economic ties.

"Through forming strong personal ties between the leaders, we want to make Russia feel that by quickly solving the Northern Territories issue, Japan can contribute to the development of Russia and Siberia in particular," Seko said.

The last Japanese leader to visit Moscow was Junichiro Koizumi, who made the trip in 2003.

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Russia, Japan vow new push to end islands dispute

• Published: 29 Apr 2013 at 13.49
• Online news: Asia

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Monday to renew efforts to find a solution to a decades-long territorial row that has prevented the two sides from signing a World War II peace treaty.


Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a meeting in Moscow, on April 29, 2013. Putin and Abe pledged Monday to renew efforts to find a solution to a decades-long territorial row that has prevented the two sides from signing a World War II peace treaty.

After several hours of talks in the Kremlin, Abe and Putin agreed to order their foreign ministers to reopen talks on finding options for a solution that could be presented to the leaders.

Abe, who was making the first high-level official visit by a Japanese prime minister to Moscow in a decade, hailed the outcome as a "great result" and said he had succeeded in building a strong bond with the Russian strongman.

According to a joint declaration adopted in the Kremlin, the two leaders agreed it was "abnormal" their countries had not signed a peace treaty 67 years after the end of World War II.

They expressed determination to overcome "the existing differences" on the islands dispute through talks although there was no concrete suggestion of what solution could end the years of deadlock.

The dispute surrounds the southernmost four of the Kuril islands -- known in Japan as the Northern Territories -- which have been controlled by Moscow since the end of World War II but are still claimed by Tokyo.

"The talks on a peace treaty agreement in the last few years have been in a state of stagnation," Abe said through a translator.

"We managed to agree that we will renew these talks and we will speed up this process. I consider this a great result of this meeting."

Abe, who has always insisted that building strong personal relations with Putin was key for solving the problem, added: "I feel that we have established personal, trusting relations."

Putin agreed that in recent years peace treaty negotiations "had effectively stopped". "Today, we managed to reach an agreement about resuming contacts along this track," he said at the Kremlin news conference alongside Abe.

Analysts say economic cooperation between Russia and Japan has been stymied by their failure since the 1950s to agree a World War II peace treaty owing to the dispute over the islands chain.

However since returning to power in December, Abe has made improving relations with Russia a priority and given rise to cautious hope by backing the resumption of stalled talks on a solution.

The last such top-level official visit to Russia was by then prime minister Junichiro Koizumi in January 2003.

Former prime ministers Yasuo Fukuda and Taro Aso visited in 2008 and 2009 for shorter, lower-level trips.

Japan is particularly interested in increasing its import of Russian energy resources as it seeks to diversify supplies in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

Russia's trade with Japan reached $32 billion (24 billion euros) last year. But Russia, despite its size and proximity, was only Japan's 15th most important trading partner, in a sign of the unrealised potential of relations.

Yet there remains little hope of an immediate breakthrough, with Tokyo insisting the four islands currently inhabited by around 16,500 Russians are its territory and Moscow showing no hint of a compromise.

"It does not mean that we will solve everything tomorrow if the problem has not been solved for the past 67 years," Putin said. "We did not create this problem -- we inherited it from the past.

"But at least, we will continue work on this complex issue, but one that is so important for both sides."

To Tokyo's fury, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has twice visited the island of Kunashir (called Kunashiri in Japan) which juts out past the northeastern tip of Japan's Hokkaido island.

One solution mooted in the past could involve Russia ceding control of the two smallest islands of Shikotan and Khabomai and keeping the much larger Kunashir and Iturup (known as Etorofu in Japan).

But even this would require massive concessions from both sides that would be unpalatable for nationalists.

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Russia and Japan create joint investment pot with $1bn entry ticket

Published time: April 29, 2013 18:30

AFP Photo / Itsuo Inouye

Russia and Japan have launched a new tool for the development of mutual investments. The new Russo-Japanese investment platform involves injections starting from $1 billion and is aimed at boosting Russia’s Far East.

Russia and Japan have launched a new tool for the development of mutual investments. The new Russo-Japanese investment platform involves injections starting from $1 billion and is aimed at boosting Russia’s Far East.

The agreement was reached on an official visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Moscow where he met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. It was the first official trip by a Japanese Premier to Russia for ten years.

The two sides agreed to jointly invest in infrastructure, medicine and health, technology, “smart cities” and alternative energy sources.

Among the top priorities for regional investment program are Russia’s Far East and Eastern Siberia. Russia’s Eastern regions provide excellent conditions for creating highly profitable projects due to the resource base and transport potential, and companies that are already involved in business there will get additional efficiency with the influx of foreign investment, Kirill Dmitriev, Director General of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe applauds during a signing ceremony in Moscow's Kremlin on Monday, April 29, 2013. (AFP Photo / Ivan Sekretarev)

The new two-way platform is based on a powerful financial component. In addition to RDIF, Russia’s Vnesheconombank and Japan Bank for International Cooperation is also on board.

“The new mechanism is designed to simplify the exchange of technology and experience,” Dmitriev said. “The Japanese economy is built on advanced technology, and this is exactly what we are lacking."

Leading Japanese corporations were invited to meet on the sidelines of the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow. Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Olympus and many have expressed interest in in investing in Russia. “Now RDIF’s goal is to turn that interest into real projects,” Dmitriev said.

Another cooperation agreement was reached between Japan’s Hokkaido Bank and the government of Russia’s Amur region.

Earlier it was reported that Russian-Japanese joint investments may increase by 10 times over the next three years. “But with such financial and technological support we have reason to think that the real figures can get higher. So far Russia’s interest in Japanese foreign investments is less than 1% (0.62% in 2012). But we already have a lot of positive examples of investment by Japanese companies in our country,” Dmitriev said.

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Japan's Abe vows dialogue with Russia's Putin in softer line than West

6:26 a.m. CDT, July 20, 2014

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to continue dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, taking a softer line with Moscow than some Western powers after the shooting down of a passenger jet over Ukraine.

Abe has worked to improve Japan's relations with resource-rich Russia, a centerpiece of his foreign policy.

"Russia should commit constructively to various international issues as a responsible state. To help that I will continue dialogue with President Putin," Abe said in a speech carried in Japanese media.

"Any conflict should be solved not by power but by diplomatic means based on international law," he said.

Ukraine has accused Russia and pro-Moscow rebels of destroying evidence to cover up their guilt in the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines jet that has intensified a showdown between the Kremlin and Western powers.

Calling it "an outrage of unspeakable proportions", U.S. President Barack Obama stopped short of directly blaming Russia for the incident but warned that he was prepared to tighten economic sanctions.

Britain said on Sunday it would seek to persuade other European nations at an EU meeting on Tuesday to ratchet up sanctions on Russia.

World leaders have called for a rapid investigation into the shooting down of the airliner which was carrying 298 passengers. The incident could mark a pivotal moment in deteriorating relations between Russia and the West.

The United States and Britain said a surface-to-air missile appeared to have been fired from rebel-held territory.

In his first year in office, Abe met with Putin five times, while failing to secure a summit with the leaders of neighboring China or South Korea.

Closer ties between Tokyo and Moscow, despite a territorial dispute dating from the end of World War Two, are driven by mutual energy interests, as Russia plans to at least double oil and gas flows to Asia in the next 20 years.

Japan has been forced to import huge volumes of fuel to replace lost energy from its nuclear power industry, shut down after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Abe also wants to advance talks on the dispute over islands north of Hokkaido, which Russia says are part of the southern Kuriles but Japan claims as its Northern Territories.