A summit between the two Koreas should help resolve the dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear programs, a South Korean official said yesterday, as a negotiator for the North arrived in the US in likely pursuit of bilateral talks with Washington.
The North’s No. 2 nuclear negotiator, Ri Gun, was expected to meet chief US nuclear negotiator Sung Kim in New York yesterday to discuss bilateral talks, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified diplomatic source.
CONDITION
The US has said it is willing to enter direct talks with North Korea if it leads to the resumption of six-party talks that also include South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.
Asked whether Ri could meet Kim or any other US officials before a security forum in San Diego, US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters on Friday: “I don’t have anything to announce about that, but I certainly wouldn’t exclude it.”
The North’s reported push for a summit with the South and talks with Washington is part of a series of conciliatory moves by the regime in recent months after escalating tensions with nuclear and missile tests.
Analysts have said the moves show North Korea feels the pain of UN sanctions following its May nuclear test.
South Korea’s largest television network KBS reported on Thursday night that a senior South Korean official met with the North’s spy chief, Kim Yang-gon, in Singapore last week and talked about a possible meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
North Korea first asked for the meeting, but the talks ended without agreement as the South demanded that the reclusive Kim Jong-il visit the South, and the North balked at the demand citing security concerns, the report said.
It cited an unidentified South Korean official.
Officials including South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In-taek declined to confirm the reports.
SUMMIT
Hyun said on Friday, however, that progress in international efforts to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons programs would be key to holding a summit with the North.
“Our government’s position remains unchanged, that we would not hold a meeting for meeting’s sake,” Lee Dong-kwan, senior presidential secretary for public relations, said yesterday in comments posted on South Korea’s presidential Web site.
He said a summit “should be helpful to progress in the resolution of North Korea’s nuclear issue,” noting there would not be any behind-the-scenes negotiations or contract with North Korea over a summit.
Kim Jong-il has held summits with the South twice: The first was in 2000 with then South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and the other in 2007 with then-president Roh Moo-hyun.
Relations between the two Koreas frayed badly after the more conservative Lee took office early last year.
Lee has said he is willing to meet with Kim Jong-il at any time, but that any such summit should tackle the North Korean nuclear issue.
North Korea pulled out of the six-party disarmament talks in April, but Kim Jong-il said earlier this month that the North could rejoin them depending on progress in its possible one-on-one negotiations with the US.
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