New attempts to get North Korea to table

SEOUL, June 24 (UPI) -- Diplomats from South Korea and Moscow are looking at a session of five members of the six-party talks in an effort to get the sixth -- North Korea -- back to the table.

North Korea said it would withdraw from the six-party talks but, in fact, hasn't participated in a formal manner in some time.

The other six-party members -- China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States -- have tried to coax Pyongyang back to the talks. Those meetings, centered on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, began in 2003, and the most recent formal sessions were in 2007.

Since then, however, North Korea has become more belligerent than diplomatic, carrying out a series of military tests, including an underground nuclear blast a month ago.

Those tests led to sanctions from the U.N. Security Council -- where six-party members China, Russia and the United States all have permanent seats. In response Pyongyang said it would never return to the six-party talks.

This week North Korea, which had already issued a similar statement about its west coast, sent the Japanese coast guard a warning for ships to stay away from the Korean east coast for a 16-day period beginning Thursday.

That message led East Asian analysts to believe North Korea is scheduling live-fire tests of short-range munitions. Intelligence agencies have also said Pyongyang could test a long-range missile, firing it toward Hawaii, around the time of the American July Fourth holiday.

While it isn't likely the rocket, which has an estimated range of 3,700 miles, could reach Hawaii 4,500 miles away, it could make many countries uncomfortable. Such a track would be over Japan, for instance.

South Korean negotiator Wi Sung-lac traveled this week to Russia for meetings with Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin. A communique from the men Wednesday outlined a plan for China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States to meet and find a way to get North Korea back to negotiations. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak made a similar suggestion during his recent meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama.

"Such a decision should be reconsidered," Borodavkin said in an Itar-Tass report after he met with Wi. "Diplomacy should be employed to resolve the problem and there can be no other way than dialogue. Close cooperation among relevant parties is necessary."

The Wi-Borodavkin meeting occurred a week after China and Russia issued a joint statement urging Pyongyang get involved in the six-party talks.

Pyongyang hasn't responded directly to those overtures unless its saber-rattling could be seen as answer enough.

The United States is watching a North Korean ship suspected of carrying munitions. Pyongyang said an attempt to board the vessel -- allowed under the new set of Security Council sanctions -- would be an act of war.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said, "It is little short of committing a suicide for the U.S. to push the situation on the peninsula to the worst crisis."