North Korea has expressed interest in reviving stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear programme, Russia's envoy to the forum said on Sunday, but his South Korean counterpart played down hopes of any early meeting. Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Alexeyev, Moscow's top nuclear negotiator, held talks in Pyongyang last week with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-Kwan. "We both agreed (in Pyongyang) that we should continue to work for a diplomatic solution and that the six-party process should be revived," Alexeyev told reporters. He was speaking after talks with South Korea's delegate to the talks, Chun Yung-Woo. "I was repeatedly told in Pyongyang that they are for the continuation of the (six-party) process and they are for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula on the basis of the joint statement and on the basis of the main fundamental points of this joint statement, word for word, deed for deed."
Chun said it was too early to be confident the talks could be restarted, as the UN security council demanded in a resolution imposing sanctions on the North for its nuclear test declaration. "We have to see how North Korea will respond to the sanctions. After then, we can confidently talk about the diplomatic process," he said.
At the talks in September last year, the North in a joint statement agreed to give up its nuclear programme in exchange for energy and economic aid and security guarantees. But it has boycotted the forum since November in protest at US financial restrictions. The talks group Russia, the two Koreas, China, Japan and the United States.