Tokyo: Japan said yesterday it was recalling its ambassador to Moscow temporarily after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited a disputed island, raising the stakes in a territorial row.

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan, struggling with a divided parliament and a fragile economy, has come under fire for what critics claim was his mishandling of a separate territorial dispute with China, and is under pressure to look firm this time.

"We have a territorial problem and that needs to be solved," Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told a news conference at which he announced the envoy's temporary recall.

"But our basic policy of concluding a peace treaty with Russia and strengthening economic relations once that problem is settled remains unchanged," he added.

The dispute prevented Russia and Japan signing a peace treaty which would formally end the Second World War.

Medvedev made a brief visit on Monday to one of four island outposts Russia seized from Japan at the end of the war.

Japan's most senior government spokesman said earlier that leaders from Japan and Russia were still likely to hold talks at a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) on November 13 and 14, although Maehara said nothing had been decided. Strained relations between Japan and China have raised concerns about the fallout for business given the deep economic ties between Asia's top two economies.

Even keel

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who last week urged Beijing and Tokyo to be calm and offered to host trilateral talks to bring relations back to an even keel, said the offer still stood.

However they could discuss other issues as well.

"The offer that I made that the United States would be willing to host a trilateral with both Japan and China if that would facilitate dialogue stands, and it is not only about one issue," Clinton said on Tuesday during a visit to Malaysia.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu dismissed the proposal yesterday as "a US idea".

He added that it was "totally wrong" to include the disputed islands in any US-Japan defence agreements.

"It must be pointed out that the Diaoyu islands are Chinese territory," he said.