NAGATO // The leaders of Russia and Japan held talks at a hot springs resort in western Japan on Thursday on a territorial dispute that has divided their countries for 70 years.
Following their discussions, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe ordered a start to consultations on possible joint economic activity on four disputed islands, said Kremlin economic aide Yuri Ushakov.
A statement on the order would be published on Friday, he added.
The summit in Nagato city marked Mr Putin his first official visit to a G7 country since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, with talks scheduled to move to Tokyo on Friday.
Mr Abe invited Mr Putin to Japan in spite of the the fact that the G7 nations still have sanctions on Russia.
The Japanese prime minister said he and Mr Putin spent much of their three-hour meeting in Nagato discussing the dispute over four islands seized by the former Soviet Union in the closing days of the Second World War, and a peace treaty officially ending the two countries’ wartime hostilities.
The disagreement over the four southern Kuril islands, which Japan calls the Northern Territories, has kept the two countries from signing a peace agreement following World War II.
But Mr Abe hopes that possible economic cooperation on the islands will help solve the territorial dispute and bolster ties.
He did not say if there had been any progress on the territorial issue, but a major breakthrough is currently seen as unlikely.
Mr Putin, meanwhile, credited Mr Abe’s efforts for “a certain movement in the development of Russian-Japanese ties”.
James Brown, a Japan-Russia expert at Temple University’s Japan campus in Tokyo, said the meeting was “an extraordinary development”.
“I think prime minister Abe is being really quite bold in announcing this new approach to relations with Russia, especially coming at such a difficult time in relations between Russia and the West,” he said.
* Associated Press, Reuters
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
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What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
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The Africa Institute 101
Housed on the same site as the original Africa Hall, which first hosted an Arab-African Symposium in 1976, the newly renovated building will be home to a think tank and postgraduate studies hub (it will offer master’s and PhD programmes). The centre will focus on both the historical and contemporary links between Africa and the Gulf, and will serve as a meeting place for conferences, symposia, lectures, film screenings, plays, musical performances and more. In fact, today it is hosting a symposium – 5-plus-1: Rethinking Abstraction that will look at the six decades of Frank Bowling’s career, as well as those of his contemporaries that invested social, cultural and personal meaning into abstraction.
