The latest summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the fifth in eight months, did not appear to have resulted in any substantive progress toward resolving the long-standing dispute over the Russian-held islands off Hokkaido — which Tokyo has long said is the prerequisite for concluding a formal World War II peace treaty with Moscow. The two leaders only said they have reconfirmed their intentions to expedite the peace treaty talks on the basis of the 1956 Japan-Soviet joint declaration, which calls for handover of the two smaller islands to Japan upon the signing of a peace treaty, as they agreed on last November.

Abe reportedly hopes to move the issue forward when Putin visits Japan to attend the Group of 20 summit in June — even by agreeing to a compromise settlement that deviates from Japan's long-held position over the dispute. However, Russia does not appear ready to bend its position to settle the dispute with Japan. The prospect that even a compromise settlement will be reached anytime soon is far from clear.

Abe, who is in his final three-year term as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party through 2021, has expressed his eagerness to resolve the dispute over the islands of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai islets — which were seized by Soviet forces following Japan's surrender in 1945 — while he is in office. He has sought to build a personal rapport with Putin — holding as many as 25 meetings so far with the Russian leader — and has explored fresh approaches to resolving the dispute, including joint economic development of the disputed islands. In the previous summit in November, Abe agreed with Putin to accelerate the peace treaty talks on the basis of the 1956 declaration, which says Moscow will hand over Shikotan and the Habomai islets but makes no mention of the much larger islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu, which account for more than 90 percent of the disputed territory.