Russia sees no end to island dispute with Japan after visit

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday there was no end in sight to a decades-long territorial dispute with Japan, after visiting two of four islands claimed by both sides.

"Forming a solution is not yet in view," Lavrov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying after visiting the islands of Shikotan and Kunashir, two of four islands Russia seized from Japan at the end of World War II.

The four islands, known in Russia as the Kuril islands and in Japan as the Northern Territory, have been a bone of contention ever since, preventing Moscow and Tokyo from signing a post-war peace treaty to this day.

"We are still approaching the problem of border demarcation from contradictory points of view," Lavrov said after the first visit by a foreign minister to the islands since the end of the Soviet Union.

He added however that he regretted there were no Russian-Japanese joint ventures on the islands.

"The Russian side is ready for cooperation on the Kurils," he was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying. "Russian laws create all the necessary conditions for it."