Khabarovsk (Russia), Jan 12: Hoping to open Siberia's vast oil reserves to energy-hungry Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi wrapped up his four-day visit to Russia with a stopover today in this frontier city on its far eastern fringe.

Greeted by ice sculptures and Christmas lights, Koizumi arrived before dawn on his official plane from Moscow, where he and President Vladimir Putin signed a pact outlining the need to expand ties and quickly resolve a territorial dispute that has kept the two countries from concluding a peace treaty after World War II. In Moscow, Koizumi strongly urged Putin to push forward with projects to tap Siberia's energy resources and to build a pipeline from Siberia to the Pacific. Access to Russian oil and gas is increasingly important to resource-poor Japan, which relies heavily on oil from the Middle East.

"This region has great resources of energy," Koizumi said at a news conference here today. "Japan must import most of its oil from abroad. There is much that we can do for each other." Koizumi, who has been more open to improving trade and less insistent on resolving the border dispute than his predecessors, continued to pitch Japan's support for the pipeline - and repeated his concerns over developments in neighbouring North Korea - in meetings with senior officials here.

North Korea figured strongly in the first item on Koizumi's agenda, a meeting with Konstantin Pulikovsky, Putin's representative for federal affairs in the Russian far east. Bureau Report