Japan greets the new century with two major diplomatic issues unresolved since the end of World War II -- concluding a peace treaty with Russia and normalizing diplomatic relations with North Korea.
Government officials hope that Foreign Minister Yohei Kono's planned visit to Moscow on Jan. 16 and 17 will set the stage for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's trip to Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin, possibly in February.
Kono had hoped to make the trip before the end of 2000, a target that leaders of the two countries set in Krasnoyarsk in eastern Siberia in 1997 for settling a decades-long territorial dispute and for signing the peace treaty.