Russia-Japan summit: Putin, Abe inch closer towards normalizing ties
(World News Russia)

On April 27 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to Moscow four years after his first spearheading visit and had the most ‘business as usual’ of bilateral summits with President Vladimir Putin to date. The leaders of Japan and Russia met in the Kremlin for their 17th bilateral meeting since April 2013. Why doesn´t Russia return the `Northern Territories´ to Japan? Journalists usually leave it to political scientists or historians to count the frequency with which such summits occur, say, between the top brass of Russia and China, or China and Japan. In the case of Putin and Abe, however, stressing the number of meetings has become a regular feature of media reports and...