MOSCOW, July 18, 2008 (AFP) - Russia's foreign ministry on Friday voiced 'bewilderment and regret' over Japanese school materials that described the disputed Kuril Islands as unlawfully occupied by Russia.

MOSCOW, July 2, 2008 (AFP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Thursday against expecting a breakthrough in the territorial dispute with Japan over the four Kuril islands controlled by Moscow since World War II.

MOSCOW, July 2, 2008 (AFP) - A senior Russian official voiced outrage on Wednesday that Japan had included on the website of next week's G8 summit a plea for the return of four islands controlled by Moscow since World War II.

TOKYO, Dec 20, 2007 (AFP) - A Russian toddler who was the first emergency patient brought to Japan from the disputed Kuril islands has fully recovered, with his mother hoping Thursday he will be a symbol of reconciliation.

TOKYO, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Russia said Friday that it wants to resolve a dispute with Japan over the Kuril islands, which has prevented them signing a treaty to end World War II.

'We do not have the intention of preserving this problem. We truly want to end it,' Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement in Moscow.

Kamynin added that Russian-Japanese relations 'must not be hostage to 'territorial problems' the only serious disagreement in our relationship.'

TOKYO, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Japan and Russia confirmed Friday they would continue talks on the disputed ownership of the southern Kuril islands which has prevented them from signing a peace treaty formally ending World War II.

The assurances were made in a 10-minute telephone conversation between Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Russian President Vladmir Putin, the foreign ministry here said in a statement.

TOKYO, Oct 12, 2007 (AFP) - A Russian infant suffering serious burns arrived Friday in Japan from the Kuril islands, the first time Tokyo has accepted an emergency patient from the disputed territory.

The baby boy aged one year and 11 months was injured late Thursday in an accident with boiling water in Kunashiri, one of four islands claimed by Japan, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Japan decided to accept the boy, whose name was not given, 'from a humanitarian point of view' after authorities in the island made an emergency request, the ministry said.

LAKE AKAN, Japan, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) - Amid a long stalemate between Japan and Russia over four disputed islands, another player is striving to be heard -- the Ainu people, who were the indigenous inhabitants.

The Ainu, an ethnically distinct people who have long faced discrimination, are hoping to win new dignity by having a say in the fate of the four Russian-ruled islands near Japan's northern coast.

KURILISK, Kuril Islands, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) - Russia's economic boom has spread to its Far East islands claimed by Japan, leading islanders to turn their backs on Tokyo's trump card of financial aid in a deadlocked territorial row.

'Of course I feel our economy is picking up,' said Roman Kazachikov, a 27-year-old bus driver in Iturup, or Etorofu, the biggest of the four disputed Kuril islands, known in Japan as the Northern Territories.

KURILISK, Kuril Islands, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) - 'Nyet,' Ivan Smutchenko answered shaking his head without hesitation when asked if Russia should give Japan back the four Kuril islands seized at the end of World War II.

His father, Vladimir Smutchenko, was the first Russian born on the largest island of Iturup, or Etorofu, in 1947, helped by both Japanese and Russian midwives.

'This is Russian soil. This is my motherland,' the 21-year-old said on a trip back to the barren island from medical school in Saint Petersburg.