.Korean peninsula in negotiating vacuum - opinion.

23/11 Tass 260

MOSCOW, November 23 (Itar-Tass) -- The Korean peninsula has landed in
a negotiating vacuum, which prompts concern for security of Russia's Far
Eastern districts, Mikhail Margelov, the chairman of the International
Affairs Committee of the Federation Council upper house of Russian
parliament, said on Tuesday.
He believes Tuesday's shelling of a South Korean island by North Korea
"confirms the danger of the aggravation between South and North." Noting
that Pyongyang keeps silence about the motives for the shelling, Margelov
said, "If this is the answer to the military exercise in South Korea, then
the leaders of North (Korea) show an inadequate reaction."
"The unpredictability of the moves by Pyongyang that eagerly develops
nuclear armaments poses a threat transcending the peninsula's boundaries,"
he stated. "This conduct causes justified concern also for security of
Russia's Far Eastern districts," Margelov stressed. Russia "is interested
in peace and stability near its borders, the more so as it heads the
working group on the mechanism of peace and security in the region," he
noted.
The chairman of the International Affairs Committee believes "the
quest of the compromise and North Korea's return to the negotiations on
denuclearisation" is the main task of the world community and of the
members of the group of six. He believes in the framework of these
negotiations it is necessary "to launch a dialogue for the improvement of
the situation on the peninsula that has a bearing on the interests of the
entire South East Asia."
-0-saf/kud