Russia on Monday denounced plans by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to view four disputed islands from a boat outside Russia's territorial waters.
The islands, north of Japan's main island of Hokkaido, were seized by the Soviet Union in the final days of World War Two.
Tokyo refuses to sign a formal peace treaty with Russia until they are returned, making the issue a major complication in relations that effectively blocks large-scale Japanese investment in Russia.
Japan's Kyodo news agency said earlier this month that Koizumi would view the islands - known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the Southern Kuriles - from a Japanese Coast Guard patrol boat on September 2.
But a Japanese Foreign ministry official said later that nothing had been decided, including the date.
The Russian Foreign ministry said in a statement: "It is clear to us that such actions, demonstratively timed for the anniversary of the end of World War Two, can complicate rather than give a positive impulse to the talks on a peace treaty."
Japan capitulated on September 15, 1945, after its defeat in World War Two.
Koizumi's predecessor, Yoshiro Mori, viewed the islands from a helicopter in 2001.
In the early 1990s Russia's first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin, made some statements that were interpreted in Tokyo as willingness to return at least two of the disputed islands.
However, in later years Moscow made it clear it would not relinquish the islands. It made several offers of joint control, but they met with a cold response from Tokyo.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit to Japan early next year.
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