South Korea's top nuclear envoy departed for Russia on Monday for talks with his Russian counterpart on ways to resume the long-stalled six-party dialogue on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, Yonhap quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
During his three-day trip to Russia, Hwang Joon-kook is scheduled to meet with Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Morgulov Igor on Tuesday to assess recent developments on the Korean Peninsula and explore ways to restart the denuclearization talks, according to the ministry.
His scheduled meeting with the Russian envoy is the latest in a series of diplomatic efforts made by five members of the multilateral forum -- South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia -- since the beginning of this year to restart the dialogue with North Korea.
"The five counties share the necessity of restarting the denuclearization talks at an early date," a senior government official in Seoul said, requesting anonymity.
The six-party talks have been dormant since late 2008 when Pyongyang abruptly left the negotiation table.
"After wrapping up five-way discussions by gathering ideas and fine-tuning differences on conditions and ways of resuming the talks, they would take a next step forward," he said. "If the five countries, including Russia and China, make certain proposals, North Korea would not be able to simply ignore them."
After his meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei earlier this month, Hwang told reporters that the two sides have narrowed differences on conditions about resuming the six-nation talks.
Pyongyang has demanded the resumption of the talks without conditions, while Seoul and Washington have said that the North should first demonstrate its seriousness about denuclearization.
China has been cautious in pressing North Korea as its long-time communist ally, though their ties have been strained following Pyongyang's nuclear test in 2013, which at least partly is attributable to improved relations between Pyongyang and Moscow in recent months.