Russian president, Japanese PM meet in Moscow

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Russia and Japan will continue talks on signing a peace treaty, the leaders of the two countries said on Tuesday following a meeting in Moscow.

The second round of the peace talks will take place on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in February, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

He praised the first round, which took place on Jan.14 in Moscow, saying, "discussions at these negotiations were sincere and serious".

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to develop economic connections to strengthen mutual trust necessary to sign the treaty.

He offered to double the current Russian-Japanese trade turnover up to $30 billion in the years to come.

Abe said touristic exchanges between the two countries is intensively growing, the number of reciprocal visits last year was about 100,000 tourists in each country and there is a goal to reach a total of 400,000 tourists by 2023.

The signing of a peace treaty between Russia and Japan is hampered by the territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands, which has not been resolved since the Second World War.

Tokyo considers several islands its own, while Moscow insists that the islands became its territory in 1945.

Russian authorities are concerned over possible deployment of U.S. missile systems on the islands in case of their return to Japan.