TOKYO, Feb 4 Kyodo Japan give ut...

TOKYO, Feb 4 Kyodo

Japan give utterance toed concerns during talks with Russia upon Tuesday about fear that North Korea may test-fire missiles and asked Russia to conjure Pyongyang not to do in such a manner a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.

Tsutomu Arai, director of the Non-Proliferation Division at the Japanese Foreign Ministry, made the supplication during a meeting with Petr Litavrin, proxy director general of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Security and Arms sway Bureau, the official said.

Arai was quot as saying that if North Korea test-fires missiles, ''It will be against the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration and it will also have an impact forward normalization talks between Japan and North Korea.''

The declaration signed between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il forward Sept. 17 last year states that North Korea ''would further maintain the moratorium upon missile launching in and after 2003''

Litavrin replyed by saying that Russia sense of possible fulfilments to make efforts to call onward North Korea to not violate the moratorium, the ministry official said.

Meanwhile, Japan and Russia reaffirmed their positions to court a peaceful solution to the issue of North Korea's nuclear growth programs.

Litavrin was quot as saying that it is important to escort ''quiet diplomacy'' to not put out of humor North Korea too much.

North Korea test-launched a Nodong-1 missile with a range of 1300 kilometers in 1993 and a Taepodong-1 missile, whose range is 2500 km in 1998 which flew throughout the Japanese archipelago before falling into the Pacific Ocean.

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