The Soviet Union didn't join the fight against Japan until the very last weeks of World War II. During the final days of the fighting, Soviet forces captured four of the Kuril Islands located just off the coast of northern Japan. As a result of the dispute, the two nations never signed a formal peace treaty ending hostilities between them.

Today, negotiations between Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov failed to resolve the issues between the two countries.

'This is not an issue that can be settled at a single summit,' Machimura conceded after meeting with Lavrov in Moscow today. 'This is probably an issue that will require several meetings of the foreign ministers and several summits before it is resolved,' he added.

Russia has offered to return two of the four islands to Japan but the Japanese would view even this small concession of territory as a loss of face.

'We must resolve this problem in order to reach a peace agreement and today's meeting was based on this position,' Machimura said. 'If this question could have been resolved by returning only two islands, then we could have resolved this question back in 1956. But that is why we only signed a declaration in 1956 and not a peace agreement.'

Lavrov admitted that the talks failed to make any substantial progress. 'Our positions diverge on this issue, in fact you can say they are contradictory,' Lavrov told reporters.

Russian president Putin is due in Japan in March. Diplomats were hoping to have the issue of the Kuril Islands settled by then, but this is looking less likely. Still, both sides have agreed to continue talking and that in and of itself represents a form of progress.