Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Russia has previously settled some of its border issues by splitting the disputed areas evenly with other countries, a Japanese delegation source said.

Putin, however, did not touch directly on a long-standing territorial dispute between Russia and Japan over a group of four islands when he met with Abe in Moscow on Monday, according to the source, but the remarks may be interpreted as a potential approach that the president has in mind to resolve the row.

Putin, who is keen to settle the dispute over the Russian-controlled islands off northern Japan and sign a postwar bilateral peace treaty, has told Abe that Moscow resolved its border dispute with China in 2008 by evenly dividing the contested islands on the Amur River, the source said.