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Russia, Japan diplomatic officials to debate prospects to resume North Korea nuclear talks

At forthcoming talks negotiators will share views on six-party talks and will discuss the political situation in North Korea
Pyongyang, North Korea AP Photo/Jean H. Lee, File
Pyongyang, North Korea
© AP Photo/Jean H. Lee, File

MOSCOW, January 23. /TASS/. Prospects of possible resumption of six-party talks on North Korean nuclear problem settlement will be discussed at talks between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov and visiting head of Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Junichi Ihara who arrived in Russia’s capital Moscow on a working visit, the minister-counsellor and the head of the information department at Japanese Embassy in Russia, Kotaro Otsuki, told TASS.

“Positions of our countries on settlement of the problems on the Korean Peninsula do not coincide in all aspects,” Japanese diplomat noted, adding that “At forthcoming talks negotiators will share views on six-party talks and will discuss the political situation in North Korea.”

Japanese Foreign Ministry said earlier that diplomatic officials from Japan, the United States and South Korea would hold tripartite talks on the same issue in Japan’s capital Tokyo on January 28.

Six-way talks over North Korean nuclear and missile problems involving China, Russia, the US, South Korea and Japan were suspended in 2009 at Pyongyang’s initiative. Later North Korea stated repeatedly that the country was ready to resume talks, but Washington, Seoul and Tokyo continue to note that they did not find sound reasons to re-start talks.

A member of the Political Bureau presidium of the Central Committee of Workers’ Party of Korea and the secretary of the party’s Central Committee, Choe Ryong-hae, who is also North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s special envoy, visited Moscow last November. Choe Ryong-hae confirmed at talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Pyongyang was ready to resume six-party talks without any preconditions on the basis of a joint statement, which members of this format had adopted in September 2005. Russia backed this position.

Russia does not take North Korea’s nuclear missile program as a direct military threat, Russian Foreign Ministry’s special envoy at six-party talks Grigory Logvinov said. Moscow is concerned that North Korea’s nuclear program will pose a threat to nuclear non-proliferation regime, affect negatively regional situation and ensues ecological and man-made risks.