Russia Welcomes North Korea Nuclear Moratorium

Russia on Thursday welcomed a decision by the new leadership in its neighbor North Korea to suspend nuclear tests and its uranium enrichment program in exchange for U.S. food aid.

"We particularly welcome the decision of North Korea to impose a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing and also on uranium enrichment," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It also applauded Washington for offering Pyongyang humanitarian aid and said it welcomed the fact that the United States "had taken a number of steps ... toward the normalization of relations between the two countries."

Russia has been a member of the stalled six-party negotiations on the North Korean nuclear crisis and enjoys some access to the Stalinist state's leaders thanks to the two nations' Soviet-era ties.

But an August meeting in Siberia between President Dmitry Medvedev and the North's late leader Kim Jong-Il produced no nuclear breakthrough despite a raft of economic agreements and a promise to build a Russian gas link to the North.

Analysts believe Moscow's influence on Pyongyang is now limited because the North gets the overwhelming majority of its economic aid from China.

Russia's statement said "we are prepared to continue close cooperation with all partners of the six-party negotiations in the interests of ensuring the complete and irrevocable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula".

The North committed late Wednesday to suspend its uranium enrichment program along with nuclear and long-range missile tests, and to let U.N. nuclear inspectors monitor the deal.

The agreement followed talks held in Beijing last week between U.S. and North Korean negotiators.