Japanese Foreign Minister Heads to Russia

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida left Thursday for a three-day visit to Russia to make final preparations for an upcoming summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Japan, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.

    Kishida will meet Putin on Friday in St. Petersburg, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday in Moscow, with a decades-old territorial dispute over Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islands on the agenda, KYODO quoted it as saying.

    Kishida is also likely to discuss economic cooperation with Lavrov based on an eight-point cooperation plan that Abe proposed to Putin in May in an effort to move the territorial row forward.

    The plan includes Japan support for developing the medical and energy sectors in Russia and constructing an export base in the Russian Far East, a region Putin is eager to develop.

Source: QNA