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Putin, Mori meet
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RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori meet in Siberia yesterday to settle a dispute over four rocky islands that has kept their countries from signing a World War Two peace treaty.
Both sides agreed never to abandon hope of one day signing a peace treaty.
Putin told Mori at their long-delayed meeting in the Siberian city of Irkutsk that Russia and Japan “must confirm our desire to continue work towards reaching a peace deal".
“This is one of the main signals that must be sent to the Russian and Japanese people," Putin said in televised remarks.
Mori for his part said that he and Putin had “energetically discussed all the questions" that stood in the way of signing a peace treaty that would formally end hostile relations stretching from World War II. “I noted a deep mutual understanding never before achieved at the level of leaders," said Mori.
But it was clear from their joint statement signed after the meeting that the two leaders made little to no headway in solving their decades-old territorial dispute, or arranged any particular time frame for a peace treaty dialogue.
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