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Russia Hails ‘Exceptional’ Ties with North Korea Ahead of Bush Visit
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| Paek Nam-sun strolls in the center of Moscow |
MOSCOW, May 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Russia said Tuesday it attached "exceptional" importance to its warming relations with North Korea, while the U.S. charged North Korea of being guilty of a "troublesome" and "disappointing" effort to combat terrorism.
North Korea’s visiting Foreign Minister Tuesday held hush-hush talks in Moscow, touching on military and nuclear cooperation, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
North Korean top diplomat Paek Nam-Sun met Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, two days ahead of the arrival of U.S. President George W. Bush for a summit aimed to dispel any friction left over between Moscow and Washington from the Cold War era.
However, Russia introduced a potentially tense note to the Bush visit by hosting Paek for talks just three days before the U.S. leader meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
Paek's arrival Monday produced a firm Russian dismissal of U.S. claims that North Korea supplied sensitive missile technology to threatening states.
Washington labeled North Korea as belonging to an "axis of evil" that allegedly sponsors state terrorism and is responsible for the sale of high-tech weaponry to other "rogue" regimes such as Iran.
The Bush team further expressed concern about Moscow's ongoing discussions on building a nuclear reactor for North Korea - an issue that officials said would also be touched on this week.
But, while Paek's two-day stay has been enveloped in secrecy, and he and Ivanov avoiding reporters after their talks, Russia still sent out strong signals that it intends to pursue its own diplomatic interests irregardless of objections from Washington.
Entering the meeting, Ivanov told reporters that Moscow "attaches exceptional significance" to its partnership with North Korea and stressed that relations between the two improved markedly in the past two years, AFP reported.
Ivanov then invited Paek to discuss "the entire range of issues regarding bilateral cooperation and pressing international problems" during their closed-door talks.
These were held "in an atmosphere of mutual trust and understanding," the Russian Foreign Ministry later announced in a statement.
"Both Russia and North Korea expressed a firm desire to develop and strengthen their bilateral ties," it said.
Diplomatic sources told Russian news agencies ahead of the meeting that Ivanov and Paek were likely to focus on arms trade as well as North Korea's request for Russia to build it a nuclear reactor.
Moving on the other direction, however, the U.S. State Department, in its annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report, continued the hostile attitude toward the communist state.
"The Democratic Peoples Republic of Koreas (DPRK) response to international efforts to combat terrorism has been disappointing," the report added.
Pyongyang was accused of not agreeing to improve cooperation on a 1994 deal known as the Agreed Framework which halted its nuclear weapons program.
"This latter failure, with its implications for nuclear development and proliferation, was especially troublesome."
"Moreover, some evidence suggested the DPRK may have sold limited quantities of small arms to terrorist groups during the year.
North Korea remains on a list of states the U.S. claims support terrorism.
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