Solution of S Kurils issue requires partnership, not emotion - FM.

25/8 Tass 213

MOSCOW, August 25 (Itar-Tass) -- In efforts to resolve the issue of
the South Kuril islands one should be guided not by emotion or propaganda,
but by crucial needs for building up friendly relations and partnership
with Japan, Russia's First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov told the
Gazeta.ru web site in an interview.

The interview was placed on the Foreign Ministry's website on Tuesday.
"There must be created a proper climate that would allow for resolving
this old-time problem," the diplomat said. "Russia and Japan share the
understanding that any solution options must be mutually acceptable."
"Such solutions cannot lie close to extreme positions. Otherwise the
search for a way out will be doomed to fail. One should be guided not by
propaganda, but by crucial needs for the development of relations of
friendship, partnership and neighborhood. The temporal factor is not the
most important one."
The senior Russian diplomat is certain that in addressing such
sensitive issues inherited from the past it will be of the essence to
develop relations on a sound basis that in principle makes those issues
not very significant from the standpoint of either parties' more tangible
interests.
"It is most important not to be in a hurry," Denisov said

-0-str