However, the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Izvestia reports, failed to provide any official comment on the Russian offer on Monday.
Today, the Japanese government has simply reiterated its long-standing position, in particular, "We support the earliest possible signing of a peace treaty and the complete normalization of our relations with Russia on the basis of determining the status of all the four northern islands."
This approach is unlikely to change soon. An expert at the Japanese Foreign Ministry told the newspaper, "We have formed a firm standpoint on the northern territories - our public will never agree even to partial concessions in relation to the islands."
Interestingly, President Putin praised his foreign minister's Sunday statement and thanked him "for the detailed presentation of our foreign policy priorities."
According to Viktor Pavlyatenko, the head of the Japanese Studies Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mr. Putin and Mr. Lavrov had coordinated their moves and the president's "gratitude" proved this. "Lavrov made this bold step, which his predecessor could not have. He said to Japan: if you want, we will talk this over, if not - it is your decision," Vremya Novostei quotes the expert as saying.
Although this principle underpinned the Russian-Japanese dialogue in the past, the current heightened interest in the problem, according to Mr. Pavlyatenko, is down to the need to identify practical aspects of Mr. Putin's planned trip to Japan in early 2005.
