Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin attend a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN-Russia Summit in Singapore, November 14, 2018. Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed on Wednesday to step up the pace of talks to end a decades-old territorial dispute, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russia and Japan have still not formally ended their World War Two hostilities because of the standoff which has held back economic ties between the two near-neighbors.