Putin, Mori not likely to resolve territory dispute

Talks expected to bring economic, technology agreements

From Tokyo Bureau Chief Marina Kamimura

TOKYO (CNN) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori plan to hold three rounds of talks next week just before both leaders head to New York to join the United Nations' Millennium Summit.

The talks, Japan says, will likely produce a series of documents highlighting progress in areas such as economics and technology.

"We are expected to see the signing of some 10 agreements on bilateral cooperation," said analyst Shigeki Hakamada of Aoyama University. "So there will be results. But Russia has a new president, and Japan also a new prime minister, so we do not expect anything substantially new."

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The two leaders are not expected to cut a deal on a long-standing territorial dispute that has kept Russia and Japan from signing a peace treaty from World War II.

In the dying days of the war, the then-Soviet Union seized a group of islands -- called the Northern Territories by the Japanese and the Southern Kuriles by the Russians -- north of Japan. The dispute has blocked peace negotiations since.

Three years ago, the then-leaders of the two nations, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, promised to draw up a treaty by the end of 2000. But progress has been slow.

A Tokyo proposal to give Moscow administrative control of the islands in exchange for Japanese sovereignty was rejected. Russia's counterproposal that the two sign an interim peace pact minus the dispute is expected to be given the thumbs down this time in Tokyo.

Analyst Hakamada said that both sides would benefit from an agreement on the islands.

"Normalizing relations would give Japan an effective diplomatic card to balance its relationship with China, the U.S. and the Koreas," he said. "Russia, too, could expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific and gain economically."

But with both newcomers keen to shore up domestic opinion, analysts leave little room that a breakthrough is near.

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