Abe-Putin summit holds prospect of resolution on island dispute

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit on Sept. 4, 2016, Hangzhou, China. | Photo credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit on Sept. 4, 2016, Hangzhou, China.

A hot springs summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin next week hopes to solve the 70-year-old dispute over an isolated string of islands that Russian and Japanese nationalists both claim as their own, according to Daniel Sneider, associate director for research at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Read the commentary piece in Foreign Policy here.