Russian bid to defuse stand-off

SOUTH KOREA said yesterday Russia had a key role to play in cooling a nuclear row between North Korea and the United States, and Moscow pledged to use its influence with Pyongyang to defuse the stand-off.

The escalating war of words between Washington and Pyongyang prompted South Korea to announce that a top presidential security aide would fly to the US capital and Tokyo this week, part of a broader diplomatic push by Seoul to end the spat peacefully. Tensions have risen since North Korea expelled UN inspectors and reopened a reactor at a nuclear complex mothballed under a 1994 deal in which it had agreed to end such work in exchange for fuel oil from the United States and its allies.

Washington cut off oil supplies to North Korea after Pyongyang said last October it had a covert nuclear programme.

“Russia’s co-operation to solve this problem peacefully is essential. The Russians said they would try their best to use their channel to North Korea,” South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hang-kyung said after talks with senior Russian officials, including the Foreign Ministry’s top Asia expert, Alexander Losyukov.

“North Korea should renounce its nuclear programme and return to the situation as it was before the beginning of October,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted Kim as saying. “That move could pave the way for the resumption of dialogue with the United States.”