N. Korean leadership aims at multilateral settlement talks - Russian Foreign Ministry
MOSCOW. Jan 14 (Interfax) - Moscow has taken note of the wish of the North Korean leadership to hold multilateral talks on a settlement for the Korean Peninsula.
"Please note that the North Korean leader spoke in his New Year address about the need for multilateral talks on building a system of peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. There is no doubt that Russia is a key participant in this process," Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Oleg Burmistrov told Interfax in an interview.
Russia will be acting "in close coordination with China, South and North Korea, and, on many issues, with the United States in order to consolidate the positive things that have already been achieved and to go further," he said.
"Of course, we believe that the comprehensive settlement process must be multilateral, as it is impossible to deal with all the problems of the Korean Peninsula in the bilateral format," Burmistrov said.
Moscow is thinking about multilateral formats "which could become a single multilateral process at some point," he said.
"There are trilateral economic projects including South and North Korea and Russia, which is an already existing format in the economic field. We held a trilateral meeting of deputy foreign ministers of China, North Korea, and Russia in Moscow last year. This is another format, and it is a diplomatic one," Burmistrov said.
"Once all those configurations - economic, political, and military - mature, the settlement will become comprehensive. Many countries share this attitude, and no one, neither the United States nor North Korea, is renouncing multilateralism," he said.