Japan, Russia Say to Keep Talking on Islands RowJapan and Russia agreed on Tuesday they would keep talking to resolve a territorial row blocking a peace treaty between them formally ending World War Two, but chances of meeting a year-end deadline looked dimmer than ever.Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori told a news conference that the agreement had been reached after talks on Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the final formal chat between the two leaders before Putin ends a three-day visit. The dispute over four tiny Russian-held islands that Japan wants back are the sole obstacle to a treaty. Soviet troops seized the islands, located off Japan's main northern island of Hokkaido, at the end of the war in 1945. The islands' economic value is limited and their strategic importance debatable. But Russia fears a nationalist backlash if it returns the islands. Japan wants them back as a matter of national pride. Russia's RIA news agency had already quoted a member of the Russian delegation as saying on Monday night that Moscow would no longer heed a deadline agreed previously between the two countries to clinch the elusive peace treaty by the end of 2000. |
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