Russia to consider Putin's visit to Japan as soon as dates proposed - Lavrov
MOSCOW. Jan 21 (Interfax) - Russia will consider the possibility of President Vladimir Putin's visit to Japan as soon as it receives concrete proposals from Tokyo on dates of such a visit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"As we are polite people, there is only one precondition for a visit, namely the receipt of an invitation. It was passed to President Putin in principle, and he accepted it in principle. As soon as concrete dates are named in furtherance of the invitation that Moscow has received from Tokyo, we will respond to these concrete dates," Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday when asked whether the softening of Japan's sanctions against Russia could be seen as a precondition for Putin's visit to Tokyo.
Lavrov acknowledged that Russian-Japanese relations in various fields "were slightly frozen [last year], as Japan had been prompted to follow the anti-Russian sanctions."
"Contacts at various levels have been sacrificed once Japan had been forced to join the anti-Russian column," he said.
The exchange of visits "was suspended the same way as was the Japanese foreign minister's agreed-upon visit to Russia, which was supposed to take place in April but has still not taken place," he said.
"We take a calm approach toward this, although we would certainly like to resume the intergovernmental commission's work as well. We also had the two-plus-two format. We would be glad to receive the Japanese foreign minister. But this depends not on us," Lavrov said.