Nagoya

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, met in Nagoya, Japan, on Friday and agreed to meet again in Russia next month.

Motegi told Lavrov that he hopes to improve the two counties' relations greatly by steadily implementing agreements made between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In response, Lavrov said that taking bilateral relations to higher levels will make it easier to resolve every problem.

The two countries have been in talks on concluding a peace treaty to formally end their wartime hostilities. But the effort has been blocked by a territorial dispute between them over four Russian-held northwestern Pacific islands.

Motegi called for Russia's cooperation to ensure the continued use of aircraft by former Japanese residents of the islands to visit their ancestors' graves.

The two held talks on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of the Group of 20 foreign ministers that started in Nagoya on Friday.

[Jiji Press]