NAGATO, Japan (AP) – Vladimir Putin’s first official visit to a G-7 country since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea is starting in somewhat customary fashion: He is arriving late.
The Russian president was due in western Japan on Thursday for talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but his flight was behind schedule. Japanese media reported he would arrive about three hours late.
During two days of talks, Abe hopes to make progress on a long-running territorial dispute, while trying to bolster ties with economic projects, though a major breakthrough is seen as unlikely.
The meetings begin Thursday at a hot springs resort in Nagato city and continue Friday in Tokyo. Abe has invited Putin even though the G-7 nations, including Japan, still have sanctions on Russia.
“This really is an extraordinary development,” said James Brown, author of a book on the Japan-Russia territorial dispute and a professor at the Japan campus of Temple University in Tokyo. “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.”