Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in Moscow for his 25th meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2012, this time carrying fresh hope that long-standing issues lingering between the countries since the end of World War II might finally be resolved. More than seven decades after the conflict concluded, Russia and Japan remain technically at war , and signing a lasting peace treaty remains near the top of Abe's to-do list. Those talks, which are set to get underway Jan. 22, are expected to include negotiation over the status of the Kuril archipelago that stretches between Japan's northernmost prefecture, Hokkaido, and Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, another issue that has long simmered between the countries. Were it not for their lingering postwar antagonism, the geopolitical configuration of Northeast Asia and the countries' common economic and strategic interests indicate that Japan and Russia would have a closer relationship.