Seoul (ANTARA News/AFP) - Russia`s top nuclear envoy held talks in North Korea on Monday, state media said, amid international efforts to garner condemnation of Pyongyang`s nuclear programme.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin had "friendly" discussions with Foreign Minister Pak Ui-Chun after arriving in the North

Korean capital, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief report.

Pyongyang sparked regional security fears in November when it disclosed an apparently functional uranium enrichment plant to visiting US experts.

The North said it was a peaceful energy project but experts countered it could give the North a second way to make atomic bombs on top of its existing plutonium stockpile.

Six-party disarmament talks grouping the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have been at a standstill since Pyongyang walked out in April 2009 and staged its second nuclear test a month later.

Seoul wants the UN Security Council to address the North`s uranium programme, but an attempt last month to publish a UN report criticising the North flopped after opposition from Beijing.

Russia has backed South Korea`s call for the Security Council to debate the North`s uranium programme. (G003/M014/K004)

Editor: Kunto Wibisono
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