MOSCOW, May 31 -- Russia has no plan of ceding parts of the Kuril Islands to Japan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

"We aren't doing this and we won't do this. We won't cede the Kuril Islands and we won't beg Japan for a peace agreement," Lavrov said during a web chat on the website of Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Moscow and Tokyo have territorial disputes over the four Pacific islands, known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan, which prevented the two sides from inking a peace treaty after World War II.

The Russian foreign minister, fielding questions from the readers and journalists of the newspaper, also said that the sanctions against Russia imposed by the United States and its allies should be seen as an opportunity to diversify the Russian economy.