This was said by a North Korean Foreign Ministerial representative in view of the first sitting, due on May 12, of the working group of the six-lateral talks on breaking the deadlock over Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
He confirmed his country's participation in the sitting of the working group. The North Korean side will manifest tolerance but the outcome will eventually depend on the United States, he said.
The group is called upon to "smooth things over" in the sides' positions before the third round, slated for June, of the six-lateral talks with the participation of North Korea and the United States, as well as the other involved parties - Russia, China, South Korea and Japan.
The first two rounds of the regional talks were held in August 2003 and last February but brought about no changes in the solution of the nuclear problem. The parties have only agreed to the need of setting up a standing working group.
The current nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula emerged in the autumn of 2002 when North Korea resumed its nuclear programme following the miss of the deadline set for building, under the United States' aegis, a new nuclear power plant in Kymho in North Korea.
The start of the Iraq war caused apprehensions in North Korea, which the American administration has cited among "the-axis-of-evil" countries together with the Saddam Hussain regime in Baghdad.
Now the United States demands from North Korea full rejection of whatever nuclear programmes, be it in nuclear research, while Pyongyang is ready to freeze only nuclear research in the military field in return for security guarantees and the making up for the economic damage.
In turn, Moscow hopes that the May first sitting of the expert working group of the six countries will help in the search for ways of settling the nuclear problem on the Korea peninsula. The sitting will be held in Beijing on May 12, the Russian Foreign Ministry said confirmed.
The resolution of the nuclear problem, the Russian ministry believes, is to be reached "in the interest of ensuring the nuclear-free status of the Korea peninsula, peace and security in North East Asia".
