The meetings mark the first direct involvement of Russia in international efforts to resolve the crisis over North Korea -- Moscow had until now been excluded from negotiations despite its privileged access to Pyongyang.

Russia for the first time will join the United States, Japan, China and the two Koreas for more formal three-day talks to be held at the level of deputy foreign ministers in Beijing starting on August 27.

Moscow had backed its Soviet-era ally Pyongyang's stance in its escalating standoff with Washington by urging US officials to hold one-on-one talks with North Korea and offer the isolated Stalinist state a formal security guarantee.

But North Korea did a dramatic about-turn on July 31 by dropping its demand for direct talks with the United States and agreed to a multi-lateral format under the condition that Russia was also included.

But it still insists on a security guarantee -- a stance that a senior South Korean official here said should not complicate the Beijing meeting.

The North Korean security demand "will not affect our plans to hold six-way talks in Beijing," ITAR-TASS quoted South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Jae Sup saying on arrival to the Russian foreign ministry meeting.

Moscow officials played down the prospects of any breakthrough coming from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov's meetings Wednesday with Kim and North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kung Sok-Ung.

All sides concerned have made it clear that officials from the two Koreas will avoid each other in the Russian capital.

Losyukov said ahead of the Moscow talks that the meeting's main goal "was to develop mutual trust at the Beijing negotiations.

"On Wednesday, we plan to find out the moods in Pyongyang and Seoul and what ideas they present at the multi-lateral talks," the chief Russian diplomat on Asian affairs told the ITAR-TASS news agency.

He said Russia was now getting involved in the conflict because the standoff was beginning to affect its own national security.

"We intend to ease these tensions and not act as a judge on North Korea," Losyukov said.

An unnamed diplomatic source told the Interfax news agency that Moscow may propose the idea of introducing an international security guarantee for North Korea at the Beijing meeting.

"This document could include even four sides -- North Korea, the United States, Russia and China -- or six sides that would also include Japan and South Korea," the unnamed senior Russian diplomat said.

It was the second time this week that Russia had floated the idea.

But it clashes with the stance firmly taken by Washington.

The United States argues that it has no intention of attacking Pyongyang and that any written security guarantee would amount to giving in to "nuclear blackmail."

The latest North Korean crisis erupted in October when Washington accused the Stalinist state of reneging on a 1994 bilateral nuclear freeze accord by setting up a clandestine atomic program.

North Korea then expelled International Atomic Energy Agencymonitors and withdrew from the treaty.

Pyongyang has since claimed to have reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods at its nuclear plant at Yongbyon.

Washington believes North Korea had extracted enough weapons-grade plutonium for about two nuclear bombs before it froze its Yongbyon plant.

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