MOSCOW: Russiam President Vladimir Putin on Thursday agreed to start flights for former residents to visit a disputed island chain as he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe again struggled to make progress on a decades-old territorial dispute.

Russia and Japan have been blocked from signing a formal treaty to end World War II hostilities for seven decades over the island disagreement, hampering closer ties.

The Soviet Union seized the islands off Japan`s northern coast -called theSouthern Kurils by Moscow and the Nor thern Territories by Tokyo in 1945 in the closing days of the war.

In a small sign of progress on Thursday, Putin said `Russia will provide direct air flights to take former Japanese residents of the islands with the aim of visiting graves of ancestors`.

The Kremlin leader also announced that a group of Japanese officials and businessmen would head to the islands for a visit this summer to study possiblejoint projects that the two nations could start there.-AFP