Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs:
“The upcoming talks between the leaders of Russia and the DPRK are very important both for the development of bilateral relations and for the resolution of the North Korean problem.
Russia for many years made great efforts to relieve tensions over the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. We do not support Pyongyang’s self-proclaimed nuclear status, but we believe that this issue should and can only be resolved politically and diplomatically. And one of the effective tools here were the six-party talks. I think that at this stage it would be useful to unfreeze this format.
The problems of the North Korean settlement cannot be left to the United States alone. Washington is trying to win over the initiative here. But the result, as we see, has not yet been achieved. I am sure that Russia, China, Japan and South Korea together can have a serious and, what is a lot important, constructive influence on the situation. “
