AKIPRESS.COM - Kazakhstan's president Nursultan Nazarbayev called on North Korea to follow his country's path and give up its nuclear ambitions speaking on January 18 at the U.N. Security Council meeting on confidence-building measures.

Nazarbayev told the U.N. Security Council that Kazakhstan has strengthened the country and its international reputation "by renouncing nuclear weapons and obtaining non-aggression safeguards from nuclear powers," ABC News reported.

Nazarbayev said the issue of North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons "can be resolved by restoring trust among the United States, Russia and China."

He called Thursday for those three countries and the two other nuclear powers, Britain and France, to give North Korea security guarantees. He said that would be "an important condition for creating an atmosphere of trust and Pyongyang's return to the negotiation table."

Kazakhstan holds the council presidency this month, and Nazarbayev was chairing a meeting on confidence-building measures to tackle the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.