A news report claiming there will be a handover of the Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islands off Hokkaido in exchange for economic aid is "nonsense," news agency Tass reported Friday.

"All that is written there is utter nonsense," a high-ranking Russian Foreign Ministry official was quoted as saying of the Slon publication's report. "There's nothing further from reality than that."

"Thinking that in our dialogue with Japan, the talk is about 'sale' or handover of (the islands) in exchange for economic aid, and presenting it as a 'new approach' Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described is primitive," the official said.

Details of the approach proposed by Abe in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi last week have yet to be unveiled.

The dispute involves four islands off Hokkaido called the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan.

Tokyo maintains that Etorofu, Kunashiri and Shikotan, as well as the Habomai islet group, were seized by the Soviet Union following Japan's surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, and have since been occupied illegally.

The long-standing dispute has prevented the two countries from signing a post-World War II peace treaty.