South Korea, US officials discuss possible resumption of six-party talks on North Korea denuclearisation

SEOUL, December 5. /TASS/. The U.S. and South Korean chief negotiators at the six-party talks on North Korea’s denuclearisation discussed on Friday the possibility of the their resumption, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported. “I hope we’ll continue to work very closely together to achieve real progress in North Korea’s nuclear issue and other important matters,” Hwang Joon-kook, Seoul’s special representative for peace and security affairs on the Korean Peninsula, said at the start of the meeting with his American colleague Sung Kim. Kim, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, arrived in Seoul a day earlier as part of his first trip to Northeast Asia as the top U.S. negotiator for the six-party talks on denuclearising North Korea. He took office last month. Kim said that it is “fate” that they can continue to work together on the North’s nuclear issue, expressing hopes to have in-depth discussions, Yonhap reported. Choe Ryong-hae, a special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, told Russian officials during his recent trip to Moscow that Pyongyang is willing to resume the talks without preconditions. The six-party talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan. The six-party talks aimed at dismantling North Korean nuclear weapons programmes were disrupted in late 2008 after the North Korean delegation withdrew from the negotiations. Seoul and Washington have demanded the North first take concrete steps demonstrating its commitment to denuclearisation. China, a traditional ally of the North, has insisted that South Korea and the U.S. should lower the bar for the talks. Kim’s visit to Seoul is taking place amid reports that North Korean government officials and U.S. security experts are looking into a possible meeting in Singapore in January. Read more