Tokyo, Jan 13: Russia is considering sending officials to North Korea soon to seek a way out of a crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear arms programme, Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted a senior Russian official as saying. Kyodo, in a dispatch from the Siberian city of Khabarovsk late yesterday, said deputy foreign minister Alexander Losyukov had hinted at the move in response to a questionnaire from the Japanese news agency. But it gave no further details.

Losyukov, who is in charge of Asia-Pacific affairs for Russia's foreign ministry, was present at a meeting on Sunday between Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Konstantin Pulikovskii, an aide to President Vladimir Putin who is close to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, Kyodo said. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen since US officials said in October Pyongyang had admitted pursuing a nuclear arms programme in violation of a 1994 pact with Washington.

In an apparent game of brinkmanship to force the United States to the negotiating table, Pyongyang has since thrown out United Nations weapons inspectors, pulled out of a global treaty preventing the spread of nuclear arms and said it was free to resume missile test launches. Bureau Report