MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th June, 2019) Members of the North Korean and South Korean parliaments will attend the international forum dubbed Development of Parliamentarism in Moscow, Pyotr Tolstoy, the deputy speaker of Russia's lower house, State Duma, said Monday.
The second international parliamentary forum is scheduled to take place in the Russian capital from June 30 to July 3.
"North Korean lawmakers will attend the forum. ... We do not have any information yet on the possibility of [them meeting with South Korean parliament members on the sidelines of the forum]," Tolstoy told journalists.
A bilateral meeting like that ought to be initiated by Seoul and Pyongyang, the head of State Duma's Committee on International Affairs,�Leonid Slutskiy, said adding that the forum could provide a platform for such talks. However, the two states already negotiate on the top political level, including heads of state and ministers of defense and foreign affairs, so probably there is no need for inter-parliamentary contacts, he added.
Throughout last year, the situation on the Korean Peninsula began to improve as South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held three bilateral summits. Kim has also held two meetings with US President Trump, with the parties having reached an agreement last June, stipulating that North Korea would make efforts to promote complete denuclearization of the peninsula in exchange for US-South Korean military drills' freeze and a potential removal of US sanctions. However, the second Trump-Kim summit held in February ended with no new agreements and the deescalation has reached an impasse.
