Putin arrives in Japan for talks with Abe

 
Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Japan for a two-day summit that marks his first official visit to a G-7 country since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

His plane touched down at at Yamaguchi Ube Airport on the coast of western Japan two hours and 40 minutes behind schedule.
After shaking hands with Japanese officials, Putin and his motorcade headed for a hot springs resort in Nagato city, the ancestral hometown of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The meetings will move to Tokyo on Friday.
During two days of talks, Abe hopes to make progress on a long-running territorial dispute, while trying to bolster ties with economic projects. A major breakthrough is seen as unlikely.
Disagreements over four southern Kuril islands, which Japan calls the Northern Territories, have kept the countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending their World War II hostilities.
Japan says the Soviet Union took the islands illegally at the end of World War II, expelling 17,000 Japanese to nearby Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's four main islands. Russia governs the islands and the Russians who now live there.