Valdai Club

The latest Russian-Japanese summit brought back the everyday tonality to the discussion over the territorial issue after a surge of hype in the media and the public in both countries in December-January.

At the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum Vladimir Putin offered to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to conclude a peace treaty "without preconditions" before the end of the year. This proposal seemed to look spontaneous, and so far no official answer came from the Japanese side. Nikolay Murashkin, Visiting Fellow  at the Institute of Asia of the Griffith University (Australia), spoke in an interview with www.valdaiclub.com about the likelihood of the treaty signing, possible obstacles and consequences of this historic step for Northeast Asia.