NOVO-OGARYOVO (Moscow Region), June 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has never thought that it should give any of the Kuril Islands to Japan, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
"I should say that Russia has never thought that it should give the islands [to Japan]," he said at a meeting with news agency heads from G8 nations.
Putin said that Russia had signed a declaration with Japan in 1956 on giving it two islands.
But he added "it [the document] did not define under which conditions and whose sovereignty" the islands should be given.
"These are the questions that were left open in the declaration," Putin said.
The dispute over the sovereignty of the southernmost Kuril Islands to the northeast of Japan, currently under the administration of Russia's Sakhalin Region, dates back to the end of World War II, when the Soviet Union claimed the islands under Allied agreements.
Japan has consistently stated it wants the islands back and the row has prevented Russia and Japan from signing a peace treaty officially ending the war.
