South Korea's top nuclear envoy Hwang Joon-kook 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, the foreign ministry here said.
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, according to South Korea's (Yonhap) News Agency.
"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.