Medvedev to hold 10 meetings within G8 - aide.

MOSCOW, July 8 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will
hold ten high-level meetings within the framework of the G8 summit that opens in Italy on Wednesday, the president's aide Sergei Prikhodko said.

In particular, he is expected to meet with presidents of France, South
Korea and China and prime ministers of Italy, Japan and Spain. Recently
Chinese President Hu Jintao announced he would miss the summit following
riots in the Xinjiang- Uyghur autonomous region.
"Around ten meetings were preliminary planned, but their schedule is
being coordinated," Prikhodko said. "Other meetings can also take place,
but the schedules of the leaders as well as of the whole summit are
complex and busy."
The aide explained that no one-to-one meeting of Medvedev and U.S.
President Barack Obama is scheduled as they had large-scale talks in
Moscow. The Russian leader also plans no meetings with German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, as he would visit Munich in the middle of July for such
contacts.
As it became known to Itar-Tass Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi will invite Medvedev and Obama to make a brief tour of L'Aquila'
s most quake affected areas to estimate the level of destruction and the
course of reconstruction works.
Moreover, Prikhodko stressed that a peculiar feature of the summit is
variety of session formats and the number of invitees - around 30
countries.
"In fact, this is recognition of the fact that in the modern
multi-polar world key global issues can be resolved only by collective
efforts of a wide range of countries," he said.


.Japan's statements on Kurils have no legal force - envoy.

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, July 8 (Itar-Tass) - Tokyo's law declaring
the South Kuril Islands as "an integral part" of Japan has no legal force,
the president's envoy in the Far Eastern federal district, Viktor Ishayev,
told reporters on Wednesday.
He recalled that the Soviet Union had never recognized the existence
of a territorial dispute with Japan. However, seeking to establish
constructive and mutually advantageous cooperation with the neighboring
country the then Russian President, Boris Yelstin, recognized that such a
dispute exists and offered to consider discrepancies in a wider context of
business, political and humanitarian cooperation.
"First, a big step towards Japan was made. Second, the former
President, Vladimir Putin, took a decision to introduce visa-free trips
for Japanese citizens to the Kuril Islands. And, third, Japan's fishermen
enjoy the right to catch sea bioresources in Russia's exclusive economic
zone," Ishayev said.
However, Japan made no reciprocal steps, he said adding that this
problem can be resolved in the far future and "now it is not in the
political dimension."
Social and economic development of the Kuril Islands receives the
government's priority attention and should not been linked with
fluctuations in the foreign policy.
"Economy of the Kuril Islands should be compatible with the average
Russian rates. They should not be worse, but should be better that in the
rest of Russia," Ishayev said.