By Hale Turkes
MOSCOW
North Korea is ready to resume six-party nuclear talks without any preconditions, Russia's foreign minister said Thursday.
Sergey Lavrov's remarks came after a meeting with Choe Ryong-hae, a special envoy for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and a member of the Politburo Presidium and Secretariat of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
Choe Ryong-hae, who arrived in Russia on Monday for a seven-day visit, was received by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
During the meeting, the envoy gave Putin a letter from Kim Jong-un, which Lavrov said confirms the willingness of Pyongyang to develop bilateral relations and cooperate towards solving the problems of the Korean Peninsula.
The six-party talks launched in 2003 with the aim of dismantling North Korea's nuclear program through negotiations involving China, the U.S., North and South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The negotiation process has been hampered since then by North Korea's repeated missile tests in the peninsula, among other provocations.
In 2009, negotiations were brought to a standstill when Pyongyang walked out.
Despite several attempts by China and Russia -- and even North Korea itself -- to re-launch talks, the U.S., Japan and South Korea have been reluctant to go back to the table.
They insist that Pyongyang first needs to honor its former commitments to close down its nuclear and missile programs.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Yuri Trutnev, visited North Korea in April.
This was followed by a meeting in October between Lavrov and his North Korean counterpart, Ri Su-yong.
The recent visits between the two countries are expected to further economic relations.
Although Moscow-Pyongyang ties date back to 1948, they soured following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Relations improved after Putin came to power.
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