(RIA Novosti) - Russia and North Korea will discuss Korean workers in Russia and Russian crude processing in Korea at a March 2007 meeting of an intergovernmental commission, a Russian Federal service said Monday.
The Russian Federal Service for the Oversight of the Environment, Technology and Nuclear Management said in a statement that the Russian half of the intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation between Russia and North Korea met Monday in Moscow, reports Trend.
"Russia has proposed to North Korea that another regular session of the intergovernmental commission be held in March 2007 in Moscow. The last meeting of the commission was October 20, 2000 in Pyongyang," the service said in a statement.
The statement said that the main issues for the March discussions will be the use of Korean workers in Russia, the construction of the Trans-Korean Railroad, Russian electricity supplies to North Korea and Russian crude processing in the hermetic state.
Russian Railways has been negotiating the reconstruction of the eastern section of the Trans-Korean Railroad and its linkup to the Trans-Siberian Railroad for the past few years.
The issue was brought up in August 2002, when President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il discussed the idea of creating an uninterrupted rail line from Far Eastern ports to Western Europe.
Trade between the two countries totaled $240 million in 2005, and $140 million in the first nine months of 2006. Cooperation in the forest industry sector remains the strongest aspect of bilateral economic relations.