WORLD : Japan, Soviets Prepare for Talks

MOSCOW — Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama arrived in Moscow today to prepare for April’s Soviet-Japanese summit in Tokyo and for talks on a peace treaty between the Soviet Union and Japan officially ending World War II.

Nakayama will hold talks with President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh. It will be Bessmertnykh’s first ministerial-level meeting since succeeding Eduard A. Shevardnadze last week.

The main point of contention between the two countries remains control of the Kurile Islands, which the Soviet Union seized at the end of World War II but which are also still claimed by Japan.

Soviet-Japanese relations have warmed considerably in the last year despite the dispute over the islands, and it was announced late last year that Gorbachev would visit Tokyo in April for the first Soviet-Japanese summit.