Japan Forgets Dispute to Aid Soviet Boy, 3 : Diplomacy: The burn victim is from a Soviet island that Tokyo still claims.

The Cold War was forgotten today when a Japanese plane made a mercy dash to the Soviet Far East to pick up a 3-year-old burn victim and fly him back for treatment that could save his life.

Waiving rigid diplomatic protocol, the result of unresolved conflicts from World War II, Japan’s foreign minister answered an emergency Soviet request and sent a plane to collect Konstantin Skoropyshny, scalded by boiling water.

A team of 15 doctors was waiting for the boy in Sapporo on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido. They said he has a 50% chance of survival.

Konstantin, from the Soviet island of Sakhalin, north of Hokkaido, suffered burns to more than 80% of his body last week when he was doused by boiling water in an accident at his home in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

Staff at the Sapporo Medical University Hospital said he is slightly anemic and has been infected by a virus that might cause blood poisoning.

Early today, a Maritime Safety Agency aircraft carrying four doctors took off for Sakhalin after a plea for help from Sakhalin authorities. It was the first such mercy mission since World War II.

Tokyo and Moscow have still not signed a peace treaty to formally end World War II. The sticking point is the Soviet Red Army’s seizure, in the closing days of the war, of four islands in the Kurile chain over which Japan continues to claim sovereignty.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama, who ordered the airlift, said today he responded quickly to the Soviet offer on humanitarian grounds.

“This is a humanitarian problem in a neighboring country,” said government spokesman Misoji Sakamoto. “We responded rapidly to the Soviet request, and will do our best to treat the boy.”