Prime Minister Taro Aso and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed Wednesday to intensify efforts to resolve the decades-old territorial row over the four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido.
They also agreed that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will visit Japan in May, Aso said after the summit in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, capital of Sakhalin Island.
Aso became the first postwar Japanese prime minister to set foot on the island.