Lavrov: Peace talks with Tokyo futile

MOSCOW, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Until a dispute over ownership of a group of islands is resolved, peace talks with Japan lack meaning, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.

During Monday's celebration of Northern Territories Day, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan called Medvedev's visit to the islands in November "inexcusable rudeness" and someone dragged a Russian flag along the ground outside the Russian Embassy in Tokyo. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the act "unprecedented and disgusting" and urged the Japanese government to "take all measures to prevent such anti-Russian actions," RIA Novosti reported.

The dispute over the islands, called the Northern Territories by Japan and South Kuril Islands by Russia, has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty officially ending World War II hostilities. Soviet forces seized the islands near the end of the war.

"When radical approaches to signing a peace treaty take over in Japan ... then talks have no prospects," Lavrov said, adding that Russian-Japanese bilateral relations also were affected.

Lavrov proposed establishing a commission of Russian and Japanese historians to settle the dispute, a suggestion criticized by Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, who said experts already are discussing the matter.