North, South Korea agree to resume six-party talks

Topic: North Korea's nuclear program

MOSCOW(RIA Novosti)-South and North Korea have agreed to take joint efforts to resume the stalled six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear program "as soon as possible," Yonhap news agency said on Friday

The agreement came after a two-hour meeting between South Korean chief nuclear negotiator Wi Sung-lac and his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong-ho on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Bali, Indonesia.

The two sides also reaffirmed their "willingness to implement" the 2005 statement in which the North agreed to give up its nuclear program, Ri said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a meeting on Friday with his North Korean counterpart on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit. "We [Russia] hail Pyongyang's readiness to resume six-party talks without any preconditions," he said.

The six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions involving the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan came to a halt in April 2009 when North Korea walked out of negotiations to protest the United Nations' condemnation of its missile tests.

North Korea is banned from conducting nuclear or ballistic missile tests under UN Resolution 1718, adopted after Pyongyang's first nuclear test on October 9, 2006.

However, the country carried out a second nuclear test on May 25, 2009, followed by a series of short-range missile launches, and has threatened to build up its nuclear arsenal to counter what it calls hostile U.S. policies.