A leader in the Russian Far East on Thursday denied media reports made earlier this week that he supports the return to Japan of Russian-held islands off Hokkaido, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.
The agency quoted Khabarovsk Territorial Gov. Viktor Ishaev as saying he "adheres to an even tougher stand than" Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue.
Putin has acknowledged a 1956 Japan-Soviet Union joint declaration that states Shikotan Island and the Habomai islets -- two of the four Russian-held islands at the center of the dispute -- will be handed over to Japan after a peace treaty is signed. Putin, however, has not addressed the issue of ownership of the other two islands.
Ishaev also said that he "did not touch either on the problem of these islands or on Russia-Japan relations as a whole" in a report on the Far East's development strategy delivered to the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow on Tuesday, ITAR-Tass said.