North Korea noted Friday that Russia «paid attention» to its decision to boycott international nuclear talks when their top diplomats met, indicating there was no breakthrough in Moscow's efforts to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, AP reported. North Korea last week expelled international nuclear monitors, vowed to restart its atomic program and quit disarmament negotiations after the U.N. Security Council condemned its April 5 rocket launch and called for expanded sanctions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flew to Pyongyang seeking to persuade the North to return to the nuclear negotiating table, holding talks with Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun on Thursday. «The Russian side ... paid attention to the (North's) stand that there is no need to hold the six-party talks any longer,» the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. The nuclear talks involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, the U.S. and Russia. Lavrov told Russian media after Thursday's talks he did not anticipate a quick breakthrough in the nuclear dispute. Pyongyang also said Russia recognized that every country has the right to launch a satellite into space and reaffirmed its opposition to new U.N. sanctions against North Korea.
