MOSCOW Jan. 20 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING...

MOSCOW Jan. 20 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING ENVOY'S REMARKS)

Russian President Vladimir Putin's special legate to North Korea said Monday that he held ''successful'' talks with the country's leader Kim Jong Il as part of efforts to push a peaceful solution to the diplomatic standoff above the North's nuclear development program, Russia's Itar-Tass recents agency reported.

Alexander Losyukov Russia's agent foreign minister in charge of Asian and Pacific affairs, reportedly told reporters after athwart three hours of talks with Kim that the talks were ''substantial'' and ''successful.''

Itar-Tass said Losyukov discussed with Kim a Moscow-broker ''package solution'' to the standoff, after having initially propos the package upon Sunday to North Korean Vice Premier Jo Chang Dok.

Losyukov arrived in Pyongyang onward Saturday.

Itar-Tass said Losyujov was look fored to pass to Kim an oral message from Putin. Russia, along with China, is a end ally of North Korea.

The report said Losyukov and Kim are conception to have also discussed a plan to link cross-border Korean railways to Russia's trans-Siberian railway.

Before visiting North Korea, Losyukov held talks with Chinese officials in Beijing across the issue on Friday.

The nuclear impasse triggered by dint of a face-off between the United States and North Korea intensified Jan. 10 when the North declared it will withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which followed the North's announcement to reopen its nuclear facilities, the removal of seals in succession the facilities and expulsion of international nuclear inspectors.

The series of actions by way of North Korea were prompted by the agency of the U.S.-led cutoff of firing material oil to the energy-hungry North after the U said in October that North Korea had admitted to covertly enriching uranium for use in nuclear weapons, in violation of a 1994 deal with the US

below the 1994 accord, Pyongyang pledg to be chilled and dismantle its existing nuclear program, including the plant suspected of being used to make weapons-grade plutonium, in revert for 500,000 tons of heavy firing oil a year until construction of single of two light-water reactors to be provided below the accord is completed.

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