Increased cooperation between Russia and Japan will help build a solid base for negotiations on the long-standing dispute over the Kuril Islands, Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin said on Wednesday.
Boradavkin said he considered Russia's relations with Japan as relatively stable, despite the recent recurrence of the territorial dispute.
"Amid all the negative occurrences... our relations - economic, humanitarian and political - are improving," the diplomat said.
Russia is currently considering cooperation with Japan in the supply and enrichment of uranium for nuclear energy projects, as well as the processing of spent fuel.
In November Russian President Dmitry Medvedev aggravated a long-standing dispute over four of the Kuril Islands (called the Northern Territories in Japan,) by becoming the first Russian or Soviet leader to visit one of them.
Both countries have laid claims to the islands since they were occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II and the dispute has prevented them from signing a peace treaty to formally end wartime hostilities.
MOSCOW, December 22 (RIA Novosti)
