Senior US and North Korean envoys held rare face-to-face talks in New York, boosting hopes of progress in stalled six-party nuclear talks and paving the way toward increased bilateral engagement.
Ri Gun, a deputy negotiator in stalled negotiations over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, met with Sung Kim, the US special envoy on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament, on Saturday. Ri arrived in the US on Friday.
Ri was scheduled to participate in the Northeast Asia Cooperative Dialogue in San Diego, California, yesterday along with US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Derek Mitchell.
“Ambassador Sung Kim took the opportunity to meet with him [Ri] in New York on October 24 to convey our position on denuclearization and the six-party talks,” State Department spokesman Noel Clay said in a statement.
North Korea has long sought to meet exclusively with the US and gain recognition as a nuclear weapons state. Ri’s rare visit fueled fresh speculation that North Korea is preparing to return to talks about its nuclear weapons program with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US.
US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell said last week that Washington was ready to meet one-on-one with Pyongyang, but only if it “rapidly” leads to full-fledged denuclearization talks in the six-nation forum.
On Oct. 6, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told Chinese envoys the North was willing to return to six-way talks, but insisted it first negotiate directly with the US to repair “hostile relations.”
The San Diego meeting was organized by the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, which released a study urging Washington to scrap its policy of isolating Pyongyang and embrace economic engagement to curb its provocative behavior. It namely recommended dropping objections to Pyongyang’s entry into global financial institutions like the IMF.
The study, released on Thursday, flew in the face of the approach undertaken by US President Barack Obama, who has pushed to toughen sanctions after Pyongyang’s string of incitements, including a nuclear test and missile launches.
Ri’s trip followed Washington’s unusual decision to grant a visa to the North Korean officials, but Clay stressed that Ri “traveled to the US on the invitation of US private organizations.”
Prior to the San Diego event, the North Korean delegation was scheduled to attend a seminar in New York hosted by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the Korea Society.
The possible diplomatic overtures come after senior US officials fired tough words at Pyongyang.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that the US will never have “normal, sanctions-free relations” with a nuclear-armed North Korea and demanded Pyongyang’s full nuclear disarmament.
During a visit to South Korea on Thursday, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates labeled North Korea a grave threat to international peace and promised to keep Washington’s allies in East Asia under its nuclear umbrella.
Meanwhile, South Korea is considering sending corn to the North in what would be its first direct food aid to Pyongyang in nearly two years, Yonhap news agency said yesterday.
Seoul planned to announce the aid as early as this week, Yonhap said, citing unidentified government sources.
The Unification Ministry, which handles relations with North Korea, said it couldn’t immediately confirm the report.
Spokesman Chun Hae-sung said South Korea would finalize its aid plan “soon,” and corn is one item the government was considering.
The food would be the first humanitarian assistance to the North by the administration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
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