Putin Set For Japan Trip Amid Peace Treaty FearsRussian President Vladimir Putin,taking a break from his domestic woes, heads for Japan on Sunday on a visit he hopes will cap a big thaw in ties, but he seems unlikely to win any breakthrough over an elusive peace treaty.Russia and Japan agreed in 1997 to work towards clinching a peace treaty by 2000 formally ending World War Two hostilities. But Tokyo still insists on the return of four tiny islands off its northern coast held by Moscow since 1945. Putin has already met Japan's Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori twice - in Russia's second city of St Petersburg in April and during the annual summit of the Group of Eight nations in July on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. But the September 3-5 summit will be the first time that the two leaders seriously lock horns over the vexed issue of how to resolve the islands dispute and hammer out a peace treaty. |
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