S.Korea foreign minister leaves for Moscow

South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan has left for Russia for talks focusing on North Korea and bilateral relations, according to a news report. During his four-day trip, Kim will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Monday and discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes, among other topics, Yonhap news agency said. He is accompanied by Wi Sung-Lac, South Korea's chief envoy to the six-party talks on disarming the nuclear-armed North Korea. The meeting comes amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts to resume the stalled forum involving the two Koreas, Russia, China, Japan and the United States. Senior Pyongyang officials met with their counterparts in Seoul and Washington last month, raising hopes for the resumption of the multilateral talks last held in December 2008. Pyongyang stormed out of the talks in April 2009 and conducted its second nuclear test a month later. The communist country has repeatedly expressed a desire to return to the forum, but the US has urged it to show more sincerity and mend ties with the South first.