Russia urges North Korea to disclose all nuclear programmes

Moscow, Feb 1 (UNI) Russia has called for North Korea to provide full information on its nuclear programmes, not only to the US, but to the other nations involved in six-party talks.

''It is our shared position that North Korea must provide such information to all parties. Then we will be able to see exactly what the North Korean side has disclosed and what it has not,'' Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov told RIA Novosti after talks with his Japanese counterpart Akitaka Saiki in Tokyo.

Last November, Pyongyang provided a list of its nuclear programmes to the US, which Washington considers to be incomplete.

Mr Losyukov said no other delegations have seen the list.

He said the next six-nation meeting would not take place before March.

Under an agreement reached last October between the US, Japan, Russia, China, and North and South Koreas, Pyongyang was to provide complete information on its nuclear programmes by the end of 2007 in exchange for economic and political concessions.

However, North Korea missed the deadline, causing the six-way negotiations to stall.

Since the October deal, South Korea, China and Russia have each supplied North Korea with 50,000 metric tons of fuel oil.

Pyongyang earlier accused the US of failing to strike it off the list of states sponsoring terrorism and lift related trade restrictions-- Washington's obligations under the six-party deal in November 2006.

UNI XC SKB AS1732