Global Security Newswire

President Obama and other top officials representing the Group of Eight leading industrial nations are expected at talks this week to address Iranian and North Korean atomic activities, among other issues, Agence France-Presse reported on Tuesday (see GSN, May 10).

Promoting a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear standoff with Iran is one probable goal for the eight powers: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States (see related GSN story, today). Their meeting is scheduled for May 18-19 at Camp David in Maryland.

Of six major governments set to join Iran in a new round of atomic discussions next week, only Beijing is not in the Group of Eight nations.

The G-8 countries in April chastised North Korea for its failed firing of a long-range rocket, and this week might address the potential for Pyongyang to conduct a new atomic trial detonation (see GSN, May 14). Moscow, Tokyo and Washington are all participants in moribund denuclearization discussions with the Stalinist state (see GSN, May 11).

An end to Myanmar's armed forces relations with North Korea' is another probable goal for the G-8 countries (see related GSN story, today; Agence France-Presse/Now Lebanon, May 15).