Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has said Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has signalled he is ready to discuss a Soviet-era proposal on settling a decades-old territorial dispute.
Mr Putin said that during their meeting on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Singapore, Mr Abe said Tokyo could resume discussions on a 1956 Soviet proposal to return two of four disputed Pacific islands to Japan.
The Soviet Union took the four southernmost Kuril Islands, which Japan calls the Northern Territories, in the closing days of the Second World War.
The dispute has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty.
