Putin to visit Japan May 11-13 to meet with Aso: Kawamura

TOKYO, April 30 Kyodo -
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will visit Japan for three days from May
11 to hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and attend a business
forum, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said Thursday.
In their scheduled talks, the two leaders are expected to discuss a decades-old
territorial row over four Russian-administered islands off Hokkaido, among
other issues, Kawamura told a press conference.
The meeting was agreed between the Japanese prime minister and Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev during their talks in Sakhalin on Feb. 18.
In the February meeting, Medvedev proposed taking a ''creative and
unconventional approach'' toward the sovereignty dispute over the four islands
-- Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group.
Kawamura said the Japanese government is expecting a clear response from Moscow
on the territorial dispute during Putin's upcoming visit, while denying that
Tokyo will offer any new proposals.
Aso reiterated in parliament Tuesday that Japan will not conclude a peace
treaty with Russia unless it confirms that all four islands belong to Japan,
following a recent newspaper interview with a senior Japanese government
official who reportedly expressed a different view from that of the government.
In an interview with the Mainichi Shimbun, a major Japanese daily, Shotaro
Yachi, a special government envoy on key diplomatic issues, reportedly called
for the return of three and a half of the islands instead of all four, known in
Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the Southern Kurils.
Yachi has said he did not actually state that the return of ''three and a
half'' islands would be acceptable but that there might have been some remarks
that caused misunderstanding, according to Aso.
During his visit to Japan, Putin is also scheduled to attend a Japan-Russia
business forum as part of exchanges with Japanese business circles.
==Kyodo