MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia said that it did not expect North Korea to agree to resume faltering six-way talks about its nuclear weapons program as scheduled this month.
"Russia of course would like to see this round take place at the end of September as agreed at the third round in Beijing. But for many different reasons, this is not working out," Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Alexeyev said after meeting with South Korean counterpart Lee Soo-Hyuck.
"In this situation we should work together and make efforts to ensure that the fourth round is held as soon as possible," he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Lee, Seoul's top nuclear negotiator, had come to Moscow in a bid to get Russia's help in persuading North Korea to come back to the negotiating table.
Moscow's pessimistic statement came as the United States has expressed disappointment with Pyongyang's reluctance to commit to a date for new six-way talks.
"We remain ready and anxious to return to the six-party talks and we are disappointed with the reasons the DPRK (North Korea) has given for stalling," James Kelly, the top US envoy on North Korea, said in a statement Tuesday as he ended two days of talks in Beijing.
South Korea has been holding a series of bilateral consultations with other members of talks involving the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, China and the United States.
North Korea has indicated it may not attend the talks aimed at resolving the two-year-old impasse over its nuclear ambitions.
The Stalinist country maintained a tougher stance after South Korea disclosed its own nuclear experiments to enrich uranium four years ago and to extract a small amount of plutonium in the 1980s.
Both enriched uranium and plutonium can be used to manufacture atomic bombs, but South Korea said its experiments were purely for academic purposes.
A Russian delegation led by Sergei Mironov, the speaker of Russia's Federation Council (upper house of parliament), met Monday with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, ITAR-TASS reported.
Russia is considered to be one of the countries with closest diplomatic ties to the hermetic regime in North Korea.
South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun is to visit Russia next week for talks on curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons drive and trans-Siberian railway links.