VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his far east representative to Pyongyang on Monday for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

Konstantin Pulikovski will hand a letter of congratulations to Kim on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the creation of North Korea on Tuesday.

North Korea is preparing to mark the anniversary with a massive parade to demonstrate national unity and military might amid an 11-month standoff over the Stalinist state's nuclear weapons ambitions, according to South Korean reports.

The nuclear crisis and bilateral ties, in particular plans for a rail line from Russia to North Korea, will be top of the agenda at the talks during Pulikovski's four day stay.

The last meeting of the two men was in August last year. The previous year Pulikovski accompanied Kim on a three-week rail journey from Pyongyang to Moscow, one of the isolated North Korean leader's rare trips outside the country.

Russia, a Cold War ally, is one of isolated North Korea's few friends and has enjoyed privileged access to its leaders. At the height of the nuclear crisis in January, Moscow's deputy foreign minister Alexander Losyukov held six-hour talks with Kim in Pyongyang.

Pulikovski's visit follows six-way crisis talks in Beijing in late August involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States aimed at convincing Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programme.

Those talks only brought a promise of more talks and belligerent threats from North Korea to declare itself a nuclear state and test a device, according to the United States, SAFP reported.

Officials in Washington and Seoul are monitoring Tuesday's festivities in Pyongyang as speculation mounts that North Korea may use the anniversary to test a ballistic missile or even a nuclear weapon.

South Korea's conservative Chosun Ilbo newspaper said Monday North Korea could use the parade to showcase a new ballistic missile.

It said development of the new missile, with a range of up to 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles), had been completed and deployment was imminent.

Pulikovski, Russia's presidential envoy to the Far East, is expected to attend the parade.

The crisis erupted in October when the United States accused North Korea of reneging on a 1994 nuclear safeguard accord by running a secret weapons program based on enriched uranium.

Pyongyang has since demanded a non-aggression pact and diplomatic normalization from Washington in return for scrapping its nuclear ambitions.

Washington, vowing not to give in to any blackmail, has demanded an end to nuclear weapons programs prior to offering benefits to North Korea.