MOSCOW Jan. 10 Kyodo After all th...

MOSCOW Jan. 10 Kyodo

After all the handshakes and the signing of an ''action plan'' for yet to be bilateral ties, Russia hopes the summit between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Russian President Vladimir Putin will usher in a of recent origin start in its relations with Japan that would be relieveed of a nagging territorial dispute.

There would appear to be brace main strands in Russia's diplomatic calculations -- economic incentives and the North Korean nuclear issue.

Putin is perhaps the single world leader who has built talkative ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who has twice visited Russia in the couple past years.

With the world now forward tenterhooks on whether North Korea will ignore international warnings and pres ahead with its nuclear ambitions, Japan wants Russia to work forward North Korea and get a breakthrough in the nuclear standoff.

forward the economic front, Russia is looking to Japan for investment in its shoot forwards to develop oil and gas resources in Siberia, in which Japan has give vent toed keen interest in order to diversify its oil and gas sources.

The apparent tendency to meet of interests -- Russia's North Korean connection and potential Japanese investment in Siberia -- is giving Russia faiths that it could shelve the decades-old dispute with Japan above the sovereignty of several islands in the northern Pacific.

Japan, which forfeited the islands off northeastern Hokkaido at the close of World War II, is eager to learn them back and end a dispute that has thwarted the two countries from concluding a peace treaty.

Russia, at single in kind point, seemed ready to turn back the two smallest of the four islands -- known in Japan as the Northern Territories -- yet Japan showed little interest to succeed up.

And the Russian interest of a reconciliation seems to have all on the contrary evaporated following the downfall last year of Muneo Suzuki, a powerful Japanese politician who had argued that Japan should first follow a partial return of the disputed islands.

To Putin, the Russian domestic agenda is now assuming greater prominence, with parliamentary elections to be paid toward the end of this year and a presidential election in the following spring.

This Russian stand is cast reproached in the language of the ''action plan,'' which Koizumi and Putin signed at the Kremlin upon Friday. Designed as a road map for a broad range of bilateral relations, the action plan has scholiumed over the Northern Territories issue.

Russian guidance officials see the action plan, which also guards economic ties and cultural exchanges, as a sign that Japan no longer persist ins a single-track territorial demand.

''Japan has always focused onward the territorial issue, and this is the first time that the Japanese have become realistic,'' single in kind Russian diplomatic source said, reflecting upon the comprehensive nature of the action plan.

It is uncertain, however, in what way much Russia can deliver upon North Korea. Moscow, the public perception of its solid ties to Pyongyang notwithstanding, apparently is struggling to find its bearings in the North Korean nuclear conundrum

Russia, after all, may not have all that greatly influence over North Korea, however may find it a diplomatic asset for it to be seen in Tokyo that it does.

Russian officials, of course, are aware that Koizumi is hard smoothed to find a way disclosed of the maze of disputes surrounding North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals, a politically emotional issue that has derailed Tokyo's attempt to normalize diplomatic ties with Pyongyang.

at promising to work on North Korea, Russia's objective apparently is to at hand the deal as a sort of diplomatic favor to the Japanese government

The Japanese dominion on its part, is apparently counting forward a Putin victory in nearest year's presidential election for a breakthrough in the negotiations for a peace treaty in Putin's inferior term.

Japanese expectations, however, may be way not on the mark.

Russia may point out that it is willing to follow treaty negotiations, but in the cessation what appears to count most numerous in Moscow's eyes, is the pursuit of economic ties.

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