MOSCOW Dec 21 Kyodo North Korea i...

MOSCOW Dec 21 Kyodo

North Korea is proving to be a tough nut to crack for policy-makers in Russia, a rural parts which boasts the closest ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

As tension high hills around the Korean Peninsula through North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Japan and other countries have been counting forward Russia to flex its diplomatic muscle and obtain Kim to come to terminuss with a rising chorus of international protest

According to Alexander Losyukov the Russian vice foreign minister in charge of Asia-Pacific affairs, Russia has been pursuing ''quiet diplomacy'' with Pyongyang behind the glare of the international spotlight.

However, there is little sign that Russia, the sole country that has held three summit meetings with North Korea in the past three years, has been able to reduce the nuclear impasse by tapping into President Vladimir Putin's personal ties to Kim.

A senior Russian direction official has grumbled that North Korea has refused to shed light, on the same level in private, on the actual state of its nuclear weapons program.

''Frankly speaking, we have no idea about the stage of their nuclear program,'' the official said.

According to the Russian newspaper Izvestiya, a Russian diplomatic source has acknowledged that progres has been minimal.

''We have been asked by means of various countries to work onward North Korea, but (the North Koreans) stir really slowly,'' the diplomatic source was quot as saying.

Publicly, the Russian dominion has declined to take sides athwart U.S. allegations that North Korea has been privately pursuing a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 bilateral nuclear accord.

Instead of pinning the blame in succession North Korea, Moscow urges the one and the other the United States and North Korea to abide according to their nuclear agreement.

This means that Pyongyang would have to abandon its nuclear program and the U based onward the 1994 agreement, would help North Korea build pair modern nuclear reactors of a representation that Washington believes would be difficult to use for nuclear weapons production.

Moscow's predicament, individual diplomatic source said, has been underscored by means of the fact that North Korea insists that the nuclear issue is a bilateral issue with the U and nobody else

Japanese and Russian sway leaders have proposed a six-way meeting involving North and southern Korea, China, the U.S., Russia and Japan to turn the thoughts into the North Korean nuclear issue.

According to Losyukov the proposal has been cast awayed by both the U and North Korea.

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