Russia will only support unification by peaceful means: Putin

SEOUL, Nov. 12 (Yonhap) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he will back the unification of the two Koreas, but only through "peaceful means," and pledged to work to resume the stalled multilateral talks to facilitate the process.

"Unification is a fair process but it must be done through a peaceful means that takes both sides' interests into account," he said in an exclusive interview with the Korean public broadcasting channel KBS. The interview was translated into Korean.

The interview was broadcast a day before his visit to Seoul -- his first since South Korean President Park Geun-hye took office in February. Putin is slated to arrive in South Korea early Wednesday for talks with Park, mainly about increasing economic cooperation.

Earlier, the governments from both countries announced a plan to clinch a visa-exemption pact between the two sides, with Park and Putin in attendance.

Putin emphasized the importance of the six-party talks, saying that there is no other diplomatic mechanism that will advance the unification of the two Koreas.

"The most important task at this stage is to resume the stalled six-party talks and to make that happen; the six countries need to get together and resolve the issue through discussion. That is the most possible way."

   The Russian leader credited Park's idea of the so-called Eurasia Initiative, an economic project that binds Eurasian nations closely together by linking roads and railways running from South Korea to Europe via North Korea, Russia and China.

"(I) think the Eurasia strategy is a great initiative. It is very similar to what the Russian government has been building up for the last few years as a development plan," he said.

He said if the two Koreas take part in relinking the Trans-Korean Railway (TKR) and Seoul joins North Korea's infrastructure projects, it will be a big step toward realizing Park's Eurasia plan.

In September, North Korea and Russia reopened a 54-kilometer rail track linking Rajin and Khasan, connecting the North's railway to Russia's Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR). Should the ongoing project to modernize the port of Rajin be completed, Russia can take advantage of the rail link and the port for export shipping.

The two leaders had a bilateral summit in the same month on the sidelines of the meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg.

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