Russian President Vladimir Putin will sit down with Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Monday, and while the two will try to settle a territorial dispute over a group of tiny islands north of Hokkaido, they are expected to end up in a decades-old deadlock.
The visit comes just after Putin came under fire over his handling of a nuclear submarine disaster, a situation that obviously makes it difficult for the Russian leader to make concessions to Japan.
Putin is said to have told Mori during their talks in Okinawa on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in July that a quick solution to the dispute is extremely difficult. Japanese officials fear that the yearend deadline will be unfeasible if the two sides continue to stick to their respective positions during the upcoming talks, damaging the momentum for improving bilateral ties.