Russia offered to help N. Korea

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LONDON -- Russia secretly offered to sell North Korea technology that could help the rogue state protect nuclear stockpiles and safeguard weapons secrets from international scrutiny, but officials backed off after the arms flirtation was publicized.

Russian officials touted the equipment to the communist regime at an information technology exhibition in Pyongyang late last month -- just days before North Korea sparked international alarm by launching a salvo of short- and long-range missiles into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Aleksei Grigoriev, deputy director of Russia's Federal Information Technologies Agency, told a reporter for the Itar-Tass news agency that North Korea planned to buy equipment for the safe storage and transportation of nuclear materials.

One of Russia's state-controlled defense companies developed the equipment. The company, Atlas, also drew interest from the North Koreans in security systems and encryption technology, neither of which were on display at the exhibition for security reasons.

Word of secret Russian dealings with North Korea's nuclear program presents a potential obstacle to Bush administration plans to share civilian nuclear technology with Moscow. The Washington Post reported yesterday that President Bush intends to announce extensive U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia in a deal that could be worth billions of dollars.

"Such an agreement would benefit both the United States and Russia and indeed the world by enabling advances in and greater use of nuclear energy," White House spokesman Peter Watkins told Reuters news agency in confirming the report.

Mr. Grigoriev told Itar-Tass that the main purpose of the June 28 exhibition in Pyongyang was "establishing contacts with the Korean side and discussing future cooperation." He quickly retracted his remarks after they became public.

Russia along with China last week opposed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution, proposed by Japan and backed by the United States, that would bar missile-related financial and technology transactions with North Korea because of the Fourth of July missile launches.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill yesterday expressed support for a Chinese proposal to hold informal six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear threat and offered to meet bilaterally with the North on the sidelines, the Associated Press reported from Seoul.

"As many of you know, the Chinese have talked about putting together a six-party informal, and we both support that and we think that all countries are prepared to come to that informal meeting," Mr. Hill told reporters after meeting with Chun Young-woo, South Korea's top nuclear negotiator.