In 2002, Yoriko Kawaguchi, then Japanese foreign minister, was dispatched to Moscow to discuss ways of improving her country’s relations with Russia. During that visit, she told President Vladimir Putin that Japan and Russia had the most troubled relations of any two Group of eight leading economies, and that it should not be so. She argued that a dispute over a set of Pacific islands claimed by both countries was needlessly blocking potential progress in other areas. Mr Putin agreed. This was a problem that both governments had inherited from decades-old wartime hostilities, he said, and both countries should benefit from improved economic ties.
2002年，時任日本外相川口順子(Yoriko Kawaguchi)受命前往莫斯科，商討改善日俄關係的方法。在那次訪問中，川口順子向俄羅斯總統弗拉迪米爾•普丁(Vladimir Putin)表示，在八國集團(G8)任意兩國間的關係中，日俄兩國的關係是最讓人頭疼的，而事情本不應如此。川口順子當時主張，兩國都聲稱對太平洋上的一羣島嶼擁有主權，由此引發的爭端妨礙了兩國關係在其他領域的潛在發展空間，這是沒有必要的。普丁對此表示同意。他表示，兩國政府都是從幾十年前的戰爭時期繼承了這個問題，改善雙邊經濟關係對兩國都有益。