S. Korean president calls on Russia to talk N. Korea into dialogue

By Byun Duk-kun
SEOUL, April 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called on Russia
Saturday to persuade North Korea to come back to the six-way nuclear disarmament
talks amid the North's threats to boycott them.
The call came in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who
arrived here Friday after a two-day visit to the North Korean capital of
Pyongyang.
"I am thankful for Russia's leadership and role in the six-party talks. I wish
Russia will continue to play an important role in trying to resolve the North
Korean nuclear issue through the six-party talks," the president told Lavrov.
The nuclear talks are attended by the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China
and Russia.
The talks have been stalled since late last year over how to verify North Korea's
past nuclear activities, but Pyongyang earlier this month said it will boycott
the nuclear negotiations following the U.N. Security Council's issuance of a
presidential statement condemning the communist state for its launch of a
long-range rocket.
The U.N. sanctions committee Saturday blacklisted three North Korean firms,
including a bank, for sanctions on suspicion of proliferation activities.
A spokesman for the North's foreign ministry said the country has begun
reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods, a move aimed at producing plutonium that
can be used to build nuclear weapons.
Lavrov said Russia, too, had opposed the North's firing of a long-range rocket,
and that it will work to have the nuclear talks resumed at an early date,
according to Lee Dong-kwan, a spokesman for the South Korean presidential office,
Cheong Wa Dae.
"But he (Lavrov) expressed opposition to imposing sanctions on North Korea,
saying North Korea is like an 'isolated fortress' and that the countries must not
react too emotionally," the Cheong Wa Dae spokesman said in a statement.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)