To no one's surprise, Japan and Russia were unable to reach agreement on a peace treaty during this week's visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Even though Mr. Putin's predecessor, Mr. Boris Yeltsin, agreed at a summit three years ago to conclude a treaty by the end of this year, the distance between the two countries has proven too wide to bridge. Progress has been made, however, and hopes for a treaty are not dead. Patience and continuing effort will yield an agreement, but it is unrealistic to expect one anytime soon.

The seeds of the dispute were sown in 1945, when Soviet troops seized four islands, known as the Northern Territories here and the Kuril Islands in Russia, just prior to the end of World War II. Although Japan and the Soviet Union restored diplomatic relations in 1956 -- a move that ended the state of war that existed between them -- a formal peace treaty has eluded them. The sticking point was the Northern Territories, the return of which Japan has demanded as a condition of any treaty.

There things remained until November 1997, when Mr. Yeltsin and then Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto agreed at a summit in Krasnoyarsk to conclude a peace treaty by the end of 2000. That breakthrough created hopes that proved to be unsustainable. Mr. Yeltsin has since resigned, and Mr. Putin does not have the political will to push through a settlement in the face of powerful nationalist opposition at home to giving up territory. The recent accidents in Russia have only made the prospect of an agreement with Japan even more remote: Any deal, no matter how just, would look like a concession and yet more weakness on Mr. Putin's part. That is unthinkable for a leader like Mr. Putin, who has made the strong-man image the touchstone of his political identity.