Translated material
Nuclear gatherings
Moscow wants to return Pyongyang to the agreed framework
Yesterday, China officially announced the resumption of six-party talks on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula in Beijing on July 26. The first meeting of the delegations of the DPRK, China, USA, South Korea, Russia and Japan took place in the Chinese capital in August 2003. The third round took place a year ago, and since then Pyongyang has constantly postponed its participation in the negotiations, citing threats from the United States.Wanting to strengthen their position, in February the northerners announced that they possessed nuclear weapons. There is no evidence of this, but the other day 73-year-old Kim Il To, a member of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, ran over to the southerners. He claims that the DPRK has 4 kg of plutonium and an atomic bomb weighing one ton.
Moscow’s readiness to provide the northerners with “security guarantees both on a bilateral and multilateral basis” was confirmed by Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Alexander Alekseev, who has headed the Russian delegation at the six-party negotiations since 2004. Moscow is calling for a “package” solution to the issue of North Korea’s return to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, along with the provision of energy assistance to North Korea. Mr. Alekseev did not rule out new Russian initiatives.
The Russian Foreign Ministry expects “tangible progress” from the fourth round of negotiations. “It would be to consolidate in the final document clear stages of movement towards a nuclear-free status of the Korean Peninsula, the first of which is the freezing of nuclear programs,” Alexander Zhebin, head of the Center for Korean Studies at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, emphasized to Vremya Novostey.
China said it would take one or two more rounds to resolve the nuclear issue. According to the Japanese newspaper Asahi, the United States will take an inflexible position in the negotiations, threatening Pyongyang with “harsh measures if the goal is not achieved by the end of the year.” Tokyo is also tough on the issue of the North's missile programs and the ban on their nuclear research. “This is hardly compatible with the return of the DPRK to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which not only secures the right of states to develop peaceful nuclear energy, but also obliges the nuclear powers to assist them in this at the most preferential prices,” Mr. reminded VN Zhebin.