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RF, SKorea to hold consulations on DPRK nuclear problem in Moscow

Pyongyang is is evidently a no easy interlocutors for the Six and the International Atomic Energy Agency

MOSCOW, February 8 (Itar-Tass) — Russo-South Korean consulations on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula are to be held here on Wednesday. Igor Morgulov, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, and Lim Sung-nam, leader of the South Korean delegation at the six-way talks (Russian Federation, China, the United States, Japan, and the two Koreas) are to discuss way towards resuming the nuclear dialogue with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Pyongyang is is evidently a no easy interlocutors for the Six and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The death of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has stalled the regional denuclearization process. So far, the world community is closely watching the new leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong-un who states a continuity of the country's policy course. Experts hope that Kim Jon-un will carry on his father's policy line as to stepping up contacts with the Six of late.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier expressed hope for a resumption of the six-way talks in the first half of this year.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang is concerned in earnest over the American-South Korean exercises Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, which are scheduled for Feb-Mar and which, it is convinced, would lead to a "mounting tension on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia".

The North Korean nuclear dossier was also discussed in Moscow on Feb 1 with American diplomats -- Glyn Davies, US special represwntative for DPRK, and Clifford Hart, US chief negotiator at the Six-Party Talks. "The sides reaffirmed mutual understanding as to the non-alternative nature of a politico-diplomatic solution to it (the nuclear problem of the DPRK) in accordance with the Joint Statement, dated September 2005, issued by the People's Republic of China, the DPRK, Russia, the Republic of Korea, the US, and Japan and in line with UN Security Council Resolutions 1,718 and 1,874. The sides expressed common interest in restarting the negotiating process and agreed to maintain interaction in this respect," a Russian Foreign Ministry official said then on the strength of the results of the consulations.