Posted on 10/05/2006 11:16:05 AM PDT by blam
Russians 'in N Korea test talks'
Mr Lavrov said North Korea must be persuaded back to talks
Russia says it is in direct contact with North Korea to try to prevent it from carrying out its plan to test a nuclear weapon. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was talking to the North Korean leadership in an attempt to dissuade it from conducting a test.
It comes two days after North Korea said it would test a nuclear weapon.
The announcement drew warnings from the international community to North Korea not to take such a step.
The secretive communist regime says it possesses nuclear weapons, but this has not been independently verified.
Pyongyang has been involved in on-off six-party talks with Russia, the US, China, Japan and South Korea to resolve the crisis over its nuclear programme.
Earlier this week, US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said a nuclear test by North Korea would be regarded as a provocative act.
Aid deal
Speaking to reporters while on a visit to Warsaw, Poland, Mr Lavrov said Moscow was working directly with the North Korean government to ease the situation.
"We are all very worried about this," the minister was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.
"We are talking about moves we can take and working directly with the leaders of North Korea to try to convince them to hold back from committing any act which could worsen the situation."
Mr Lavrov said that in the interests of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and security on the Korean peninsular, it was important that North Korea returned to the six-party negotiations.
The most recent round of talks ended in September 2005, with a deal which promised economic aid in return for Pyongyang scrapping its nuclear ambitions.
That agreement, however, appears to have fallen apart over disagreements on its implementation.
North Korea has not specified where or when a nuclear test might be carried out.
In continuing diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is due to hold talks with US President George W Bush in Washington on Thursday.
His visit comes amid talks of a split between Washington and Seoul on how to handle Pyongyang, after President Roh appeared to downplay North Korea's recent missile tests.
All of a sudden the Russians seem pretty darned motivated to stop NK from conducting a test.
I hope the North Koreans test it right on Red China's border...
Their test facility is close to China's border. I understand that it was placed there to deter the US from bombing (we might miss and hit China). If the facility is underground, it may not do any harm to China.
Russia is always out for Russia, and Russia alone. So if they're really motivated to address this, it's because Russia thinks it's to their detriment.
So ... what factors might motivate them? National security springs to mind. Where would this threat actully impact Russia? Well, there's China, and there's the Islamic problems on their southern borders.
China seems to lose by the test taking place, and it doesn't seem obvious that a NK test would increase the Chinese threat to Russia. So that option is out.
That leaves Islam: and I'm guessing they figure Iran and NK are in this together.
"
Well, not quite. Russia is on Russia's side. Period. While that may be bad, it at least makes them understandable."
I am puzzled by posts which depict russia as being anything other than a country looking out for their own interests as well. I do find their public sudden interest in DPRK's test interesting.
Presumably, while charity-case DPRK as a nuisance-threat to the US (and japan and ROK) is worth more than letting the regime implode, nuclear-test-proven charity-case DPRK is viewed with more concern by them.
one other item may be that both china and russia would like to see this test at some other time than a month before US congressional elections.
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