Russia and Japan are to hold joint naval exercises in the Pacific next month July as part of a programme of increased military co-operation.

The move was announced during a visit to Moscow by Admiral Kazuya Natsukawa of Japan.

His host, the chief of the Russian general staff, General Anatoly Kvashnin, said the programme was an essential component in the creation of a new climate of trust between the two countries, which have still not signed a peace treaty from the Second World War.

Agreement has been stymied by a dispute over the ownership of four islands to the north of Japan which were occupied by Soviet troops in 1945.