Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=08/13/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=RUSSIA / NORTH KOREA (L)

NUMBER=2-306432

BYLINE=BILL GASPERINI

DATELINE=MOSCOW

CONTENT=

///// AN ALTERNATE TO CR 2-306427, NORTH KOREA TALKS. /////

INTRO: Russia is holding separate talks with diplomats from North and South Korea in an effort to ease tensions over North Korea's nuclear program. Bill Gasperini has more from Moscow.

TEXT: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyko says the aim of the talks is to seek, what he calls, "a greater sense of trust" between the two Koreas.

North Korea went into the meeting with a demand that the United States sign a firm security guarantee before it would agree to halt its program to develop nuclear weapons.

Mr. Losyukov says Russia is in favor of a multi-lateral security arrangement if it helps to defuse the nuclear standoff on the Korean peninsula.

Mr. Losyukov has just returned from Beijing, the expected venue of the six-party talks that are scheduled to start by the end of the month. He says China is also prepared to address the security issue at those talks that also include the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, and Japan.

With their communist roots, Russia and China are considered as the countries with the greatest leverage over Pyongyang

Separately, South Korean, Japanese, and U-S diplomats are expected to hold a meeting of their own in Washington.

The high-level diplomacy follows months of tension built-up since last October, when North Korea admitted that it had a program to develop nuclear weapons, despite an agreement almost 10-years ago to halt the program. Pyongyang also announced it had restarted a power plant that had been shut down as part of the agreement.

The crisis escalated when the North expelled U-N nuclear inspectors and backed out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (SIGNED)

NEB/BG/MAR/RAE