Putin postpones Japan summit visit

MOSCOW, May 3 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has postponed a visit to Japan because of a border dispute involving several small islands, Kyodo News reports.

Kyodo News, reporting from Moscow, said that a summit meeting between Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi could occur in February 2005, around the time of the 150th anniversary of the two countries' first trade agreement, signed in 1855.

Kyodo News said that Moscow needs more time to work out a new compromise on the islands, all claimed by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.

Under a 1956 agreement, Russia is to return some of the islands to Japan.