(FT) For 17 years, until 2014, the G7 was the G8. In a goodwill gesture to post-communist Russia, the Group of Seven industrialised democracies invited Russian president Boris Yeltsin to attend their summit for the first time in 1997. But Russia’s membership was suspended after its annexation of Crimea following the pro-western revolution in Ukraine. […]
“Normalizing relations with Russia has been and remains a personal foreign policy priority of Mr. Abe,” says Samuel Charap, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Washington office. “He thinks this is important not only for the Kurile dispute but also because of regional geopolitics.” […]
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