A Summit With Very Few High Points : Tokyo, Moscow didn’t get very far toward resolving issues that divide them

It was not quite midnight when Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu emerged from their summit with a communique. The leaders locked pinkies in the traditional Japanese style of keeping a promise. Their big promise? To talk again.

No major breakthrough was expected but, given the circumstances, the two beleaguered leaders did their best to end their talks, which included three unscheduled sessions, on a hopeful note. They agreed to expand relations in 12 areas ranging from economics and technology to culture and the environment. But they sidestepped the most divisive and controversial issue: the territorial dispute over four Kuril islands.

Kaifu didn’t manage to make much progress on Tokyo’s long claim of sovereignty over four tiny islands in the Kuril chain, which the Soviets have occupied since 1945. Tokyo has long insisted that their return is a condition to signing a treaty with Moscow formally ending World War II hostilities and to clearing the way for Japanese aid to and investment in the Soviet Union.

Thus Gorbachev will return to Moscow with little of the economic aid he so desperately sought from Japan. Aside from the warm diplomatic and personal welcome, Gorbachev got a chilly reception to his pleas for investment and aid from Japanese business. He now heads to South Korea--his first visit there.

It’s true that Gorbachev and Kaifu did agree in the communique to work toward a peace treaty that would include settlement of their longstanding territorial dispute. The Soviets until now had never even acknowledged the dispute. The communique also referred, if only indirectly, to the unfulfilled 1956 accord between Moscow and Tokyo that had provided for the return of two islands.

Thus was a major foreign policy breakthrough denied the needy Kaifu--and thus was political suicide avoided by Gorbachev. Both leaders are in political jeopardy at home. Kaifu is still smarting from his perceived bumbling of Tokyo’s play in the Gulf War, and he faced strong criticism over the prospect that Tokyo might cut too big a check for return of the Kurils. Gorbachev faces such formidable challenges from his domestic right wing that he probably couldn’t have sold giving up Soviet territory, even the four relatively insignificant islands.

Much fanfare and hoopla accompanied Gorbachev’s visit to Japan, the first by a Kremlin leader. Both men managed to sidestep the real issue--the territorial dispute--but a continuing dialogue is the necessary first step toward rapprochement.