Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alekseyev met the North Korean Ambassador Pak Ui Chun and discussed efforts "to resolve the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Russia is pushing hard for North Korea to agree to resume six-party international negotiations on its nuclear program as soon as possible, ITAR-TASS news agency quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying.

But efforts to restart the talks, which also involve South Korea, Japan, China, the United States and Russia, "are running into major difficulties" after Pyongyang's declaration on February 10 that it had nuclear arms and was quitting the negotiations, the report quoted the source as saying.

"We are doing everything we can to unblock the negotiation process," the source said. "But there has so far been no change in the situation."

ITAR-TASS quoted the North Korean envoy as saying: "The six-party negotiations can resume only if Washington drops its hostile and slanderous policies toward" Pyongyang.

"If the United States changes course, everything will be easy as pie," the envoy was quoted as saying.

Earlier Tuesday, China announced that North Korean Premier Pak Pong-ju will visit Beijing next week hot on the heels of the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the Stalinist state's nuclear weapons programs.

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