Moscow hopes missiles in Kurils won't affect talks with Tokyo

The Kremlin said on Wednesday it hoped that the deployment of missile systems in the disputed Southern Kuril Islands in the Pacific would not affect Moscow's negotiations with Tokyo.

"This should in no way harm the fast trends that there have developed in our relations with Tokyo in terms of thorough preparations for president Putin's forthcoming visit to Japan and the continuing contacts over ways of advancing bilateral relations," TASS news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

Russian media have reported that Moscow had deployed Bastion and Bal coastal defense missile systems on the islands of Kunashir and Iturup, close to the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Earlier in the day, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida was quoted as saying by the Kyodo news agency that Tokyo was considering "appropriate measures" in response.

Russia and Japan have not signed a peace treaty formalizing the end of World War II due to a territory row over four small islands in the Pacific -- the Southern Kurils, as Russia calls them, and what the Japanese call the Northern Territories. The decades-old territorial dispute has hindered diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries.

Bilateral ties appeared to begin to improve after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Putin in the Russian city of Sochi in May.

In September, the two leaders held a three-hour meeting on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, during which they reached an agreement for Putin to visit to Japan in December. Endi