MOSCOW: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will visit the largest of the four Kuril Islands whose ownership is disputed with Japan in July, a local news agency reported on Monday citing unnamed sources.
"On July 2, the prime minister will fly to Vladivostok, and then go to Sakhalin Island and to Iturup," which is known as Etorfu in Japan, the Sakhalin.info news agency reported on its website.
Medvedev last week promised to soon visit the Russian Far East's main city of Vladivostok to oversee preparations for the Asia-Pacific Economic Community summit that will be held on a nearby island in September.
Government officials issued no immediate comment on the Sakhalin.info report.
In November 2010 when he still served as president, Medvedev outraged Tokyo by becoming the first Russian leader to visit the Kurils, which are officially known as the Northern Territories in Japan.
The two nations have never formally signed a World War II peace treaty because Japan maintains its claim over the islands, which Russia has controlled and tried to develop since Japan's surrender at the end of the war.
Tokyo still claims the chain's four southernmost islands, a sore spot that continues to cast a cloud over Russian-Japanese relations and complicate investment and trade.
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