South Korea, Russia rejects nuclear power status of DPRK

South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin confirmed on Wednesday that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will never be accepted as a nuclear power. The two leaders said in a joint statement after holding talks at Seoul's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae that Pyongyang's stand-alone path to build up nuclear and missile capabilities was unacceptable, stressing that the DPRK cannot hold the position as a nuclear power. Putin arrived in Seoul earlier Wednesday to hold his second summit with Park. The two leaders met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in September in Russia's second-largest city of Saint Petersburg. The joint communique said that the DPRK should live up to international obligations and promises, including the Sept. 19, 2005 Joint Statement, noting that participants of the long-stalled six-party talks would make joint efforts to resume the aid-for- denuclearization dialogue. The six-way talks, including South Korea, DPRK, China, Russia, the United States and Japan, has been suspended since the last one was held in late 2008. The DPRK walked out of the talks in April 2009 in protest against fresh UN sanctions, but it recently expressed wish to return to the negotiating table. The two Koreas declared in 1991 to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and it was reconfirmed in the Sept. 19 Joint Statement at the six-party talks. But Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket in December 2012 and conducted its third nuclear test in February, raising concerns over the effect of the six-way talks. Putin said in an interview with the South Korean broadcaster KBS ahead of his visit to Seoul that the six-way talks would be the most possible way to resolve the DPRK's nuclear issue, noting that the most important task is to resume the stalled talks at this point. Russia along with China and the DPRK have demanded a rapid resumption of the talks without preconditions, but South Korea, the United States and Japan have insisted that Pyongyang should first show its sincerity to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. "If we constantly set preconditions for the start of talks, they may never begin," Putin said. "It seems to me that it would be better if the talks resumed and all the participants returned to the negotiating table and then resolve the issues that had brought them together." According to the communique, Putin expressed his support to President Park's DPRK policy namely the Korean Peninsula trust- building process, saying that it is an important precondition for regional security and stability as well as the normalization of inter-Korean relations. The two leaders were concerned over the recent speeches and conducts by Japanese politicians to distort history that hampered cooperation in the Northeast Asian region. Ties between Seoul and Tokyo have been strained since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in late 2012 as Abe cabinet members visited the controversial Yasukuni shrine, a symbol of Japan's militarism with 14 class-A convicted war criminals enshrined. The issue of comfort woman, or war-time use of military sex slaves by Japan during World War Two has yet to be resolved. The two leaders agreed to strengthen high-level talks on defense and political affairs by regularizing dialogues between foreign ministries of the two nations and between South Korea's presidential security agency and Russia's security council.