WASHINGTON, December 7 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and the United States keep looking for ways of resuming the six-party talks with North Korea over the Korean Peninsula’s nuclear problem. The issue was on the agenda of this week’s consultations Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov held in Washington with US special envoy for North Korea Glyn Davis.
“The two men discussed a package of issues involving the situation in the Korean Peninsula with the emphasis on the search for mutually acceptable modalities of breaking the deadlock over the six-party talks on the nuclear problem,” the Russian embassy’s press-service in Washington said. Morgulov also had a conversation with US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns.
The six-party talks aimed at settling North Korea’s nuclear problem have been stalled since 2008. North Korea terminated its participation in them after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions following missile and nuclear tests.
Pyongyang is reluctant to return to the negotiating table, because, it argues, some preconditions are put forward for their resumption - a reference to the UN Security Council’s demand the North Korean missile and nuclear programs should be curtailed.
Russia, the United States, China, South Korea and Japan are pushing ahead with efforts to resume the process of settling the situation in the Korean Peninsula, which cannot be normalized until Pyongyang has renounced the development of nuclear weapons. Many US experts believe that an agreement with North Korea might be drafted by analogy with the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program that was concluded in Geneva on November 24.
The document, agreed at negotiations among the five permanent UN Security Council member-states, Germany and Iran, envisages suspension of a number of key elements of the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for the easing of economic sanctions. This arrangement will stay effective for six months and may be prolonged for another six months by mutual consent. Over that period the parties concerned hope to draft a final comprehensive agreement that would guarantee the exclusively peaceful nature of Teheran’s nuclear program and lift the international community’s concerns on that score.