South Korean Chief Arrives Wednesday

SEOUL, South Korea -- President Kim Young-sam arrives in Moscow on Wednesday for a four-day visit to Russia that is expected to focus on heightened nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula.Kim will meet President Boris Yeltsin for talks on Thursday morning after a wreath-laying ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier, according to Leonid Bakun of the Russian Foreign Ministry. The talks will be followed by a broader meeting with top officials, including Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and Economics Minister Alexander Shokhin.The Soviet Union was a long-time ally and arms supplier of North Korea and formal relations between Seoul and Moscow were only restored in 1990. Since then, trade between the two sides has flourished. The visit is Kim's first to Russia as president. Yeltsin made an official trip to South Korea in 1992.Tension in the Korean peninsula over North Korea's refusal to submit to international inspections of its nuclear facilities is expected to be among the topics under discussion during Kim's visit. Despite its repeated denials, the Communist North is suspected of developing nuclear weapons at the sites.Seoul placed its armed forces and police on alert Tuesday, as tension over the issue of inspections heightened. Officials said, however, that the alert was normal procedure during the president's absence from the country.Russia has recently stepped up its role in the resolution of the dispute with a proposal for a six-nation forum -- to include China, Japan, the United States and Russia plus the two Koreas -- to seek an end to the crisis.Bakun said that following talks Thursday, Russian officials will hand over archive documents relating to the 1950-53 Korean War. According to a South Korean presidential aide, the documents will reveal that North Korea, backed by the Soviet Union and China, started the war.(AP, MT, Reuters)