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Russia, Japan strike energy pacts, vow to end islands row
AFP - Wednesday, May 13
TOKYO (AFP) - - Japan and Russia agreed a series of energy deals Tuesday and pledged to resolve a decades old territorial dispute, during a visit by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Both sides said they would study "all options" to end the row over a Russian-held island chain that was occupied by Soviet troops at the end of World War II, but they announced no new breakthroughs.
Putin, after meeting his counterpart Taro Aso in Tokyo, reiterated his view that both countries should first strengthen economic ties before they resolve the dispute and finally sign a post-war peace treaty.
"We are developing economic cooperation in order to create conditions for the signing of a peace treaty," he said. "We should strive to cleanse... our relations of everything that stands in the way of their development."
He said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would discuss "all the ways toward the goal" with the Japanese delegation at a Group of Eight summit in Italy in July.
Aso told a joint press briefing: "We must reach a final resolution on the sovereignty over the four islands in order to remove the obstacle of the territorial issue that lies between Japan and Russia.
"In this meeting, we were able to confirm that the prime minister (Putin) has a strong resolve to move toward the final resolution of the issue."
During his 2000-2008 presidency, Putin refused to make any concessions over the islands, known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the Southern Kurils, and his staff earlier cautioned against any "inflated expectations."
Despite there being little concrete progress on the territorial issue, the two sides signed around a dozen official and private agreements -- including an oil exploration deal and a pact to cooperate in civilian nuclear technology.
The nuclear accord will allow for the transfer of cutting-edge Japanese technology to Russia and the sale of more nuclear fuel to energy-poor Japan.
It will open the door for joint uranium mining in Russia and third countries such as Mongolia, said Sergei Kiriyenko, head of state nuclear agency Rosatom.
The pact "allows for the start of a large amount of commercial deals," he said. "The total amount of contracts comes to several billion dollars."
Japanese and Russian energy companies also signed a deal to jointly develop two major oil fields in eastern Siberia. The Nikkei business daily said the project would cost an initial 15 billion yen (153.6 million dollars).
Aso said that Japan sees Russia as an important regional partner.
"Under Prime Minister Putin's leadership Russia has been developing the Far East and east Siberia so as to become integrated into the Asia-Pacific region," the host premier said.
Putin encouraged Japanese companies to ramp up their presence in his recession-hit country, telling a Tokyo business forum that "today no one doubts the long-term prospects of Japanese business in Russia."
Japanese carmakers such as Toyota and Nissan have set up shop in Russia, while in February Russia opened its first liquefied natural gas plant, which will supply Japan with millions of tonnes of gas annually.
Trade turnover between Russia and Japan, its second-biggest partner in Asia after China, grew seven-fold to nearly 30 billion dollars this year from four billion dollars in 2005, officials said earlier.
At the end of his jam-packed day, Putin, a judo black belt, unveiled a Japanese-language version of his book on the sport alongside Yasuhiro Yamashita, a world champion from Japan with whom the Russian leader has also recorded a video manual.
Putin, who Yamashita said has "deep knowledge of judo's technique and soul", said he hoped the book that he co-authored would help the two nations better understand each other.
"If this book will at least a little help our countries better get to know each other, better understand each other...then I will consider that the goal has been reached," Putin said.
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