According to Asahi, Japanese diplomats met with their Russian counterparts in Moscow on Monday and Tuesday to discuss proposed economic activities in the Northern Territories, saying that despite the Abe administration’s strong hope for achieving a quick agreement on this front, no concrete progress was made in the two-day meeting. With a bilateral summit between Prime Minister Abe and President Putin on the margins of the G20 confab in Osaka in mind, the Japanese side is hoping to build mutual confidence through economic activities on the disputed islands with the goal of concluding a peace treaty. Mainichi ran a similar story.