North Korea's nuclear power
South Korean leader meets with top Russian diplomats about North Korea's nuclear power negotiations with the U.S.

South Korea's President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, second from right, shakes hands with a South Korean Army general at the Defense Ministry in Taejon, South Korea, Dec. 30, 2002.

“Russia’s good relations with North Korea help create an efficient channel for dialogue,”’ Kim said before the talks, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Losyukov said that Russia and China are in a good position to help reach a compromise through their contacts with the North.

“The positions of the sides must be clarified at the diplomatic level, quietly and without panic, and attempts should be made to create an atmosphere favorable for settling the crisis and initiating talks between the main parties,” Losyukov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

He said after the meeting that Moscow and Seoul “agreed to make joint efforts to ease the crisis” and persuade the parties to sit down for talks.

Russia and South Korea also spoke against putting the issue on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council “before other possibilities for negotiating have been used up,” the Interfax news agency quoted Losyukov as saying.

Losyukov would not elaborate on possible ways out of the crisis, but Interfax quoted unidentified diplomats as saying that the possibility of offering “multilateral security guarantees” to Pyongyang was under discussion.

South Korean officials have urged North Korea to first scrap its nuclear weapons program to open the way for dialogue with the United States.

North Korea says it is willing to resolve concerns over its nuclear program if the United States signs a nonaggression treaty, but Washington has ruled out any talks before Pyongyang changes course.

“That means that other solutions should be sought so that North Korea doesn’t feel insecure and will be able to make a welcome step and give up its nuclear program,” Interfax quoted Losyukov as saying.

The standoff began in early December, when North Korea decided to restart its nuclear program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. It has removed monitoring seals and cameras from its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, expelled U.N. inspectors and signaled it may quit a global nuclear arms control treaty.

Pyongyang has said that it planned to reactivate the nuclear facilities to produce electricity because Washington had halted fuel deliveries. The U.S. embargo was put in place after Pyongyang admitted in October to covertly developing nuclear weapons using enriched uranium.

Losyukov said it was hard to say whether Pyongyang indeed has a military plutonium program, adding that “there is a certain amount of bluffing in North Korea’s position,” Interfax reported.

At the same time, he added that the North’s position had a certain logic. “No one would venture to assert that North Korea alone is guilty, and the other party is not,” he said, according to the Interfax.

Moscow has voiced concern about Pyongyang’s moves and strongly warned it against abandoning the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which seeks to confine nuclear weapons to the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has moved to reinvigorate Moscow’s Soviet-era ties with North Korea, hosting its reclusive leader Kim Jong Il for the second consecutive summer last year.