MOSCOW, June 30 (RIA Novosti) - North Korea might return to six-party negotiations on its nuclear problem, but Pyongyang's interests should be taken into account, said Andrei Kokoshin, chairman of the Russian State Duma (parliament's lower house) Committee for CIS Affairs and Russian Diaspora Relations.
"The 'quintet' (Russia, China, the USA, Japan and South Korea) must approach the North Korean issue taking into account its security interests as well as the economic development interests, when firmly insisting that it maintain the nuclear non-proliferation regime," said Kokoshin, former secretary of the Russian Security Council.
"Russia and China seem to share this approach and it is important that other states of the 'quintet' consistently adhere to it as well," he said.
"Ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction is in fact one of the top international security priorities of each of the six countries," Kokoshin said. "We must not overburden it with other issues such as human rights and democracy, although they are naturally very important as well. If we try to solve all these problems at once, we risk solving none."
