DPRK's desire to return to negotiations good news, if true: Snow

The United States welcomed on Friday the wish reportedly expressed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to return to negotiations.

"If they do that, that's great news. But we have nothing to confirm there," White House spokesman Tony Snow said at a briefing.

If it is true, "that would mean the diplomacy has worked. But rather than running around giving each other high fives, I think we need to see what they're going to do," Snow said.

Snow made the comments in response to ITAR-TASS news agency's report earlier Friday, which quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev as saying that the DPRK officials "in the near future ... want to resolve problems connected to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula through negotiations."

There is "a desire to find a way out of the existing crisis situation and to find a way to restart six-sided talks," Alexeyev said.

The six-party talks, involving the United States, the DPRK, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, have been stalled since September last year.

Source: Xinhua