Wi Sung-lac to meet Bosworth, others on resumption of 6-way talks: State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Wi
Sung-lac will Thursday meet with U.S. officials here to discuss reopening
six-party talks on the North's denuclearization, the State Department said
Wednesday.

Wi will met with Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, Stephen Bosworth,
U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, Kurt Campbell, assistant
secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Sung Kim, special
envoy for six-party talks, spokesman Philip Crowley said in a daily news
briefing.
Wi's visit here comes amid a flurry of diplomacy to revive the six-party talks
stalled over international sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and missile
tests early last year.
Campbell said Tuesday that he is embarking on a tour of Seoul and Tokyo on Feb. 1
or 2 to meet with officials there on the reopening of the multilateral nuclear
talks, which Pyongyang has boycotted for about a year and said it will not rejoin
unless sanctions are lifted.
The North has also called for a peace treaty to replace the fragile armistice
that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
Campbell Tuesday called on the North to come back to the six-party talks, which
also involve South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, before they discuss those
issues.
"We think that the appropriate next step is for North Korea to return to the
six-party talks and to resume deliberations in this context," he said. "The U.S.
position, which is very firm and in close coordination with our allies and
friends in the six-party talks, is that it would be inappropriate at this
juncture to lift sanctions or to revisit aspects of U.N. Security Council
Resolution 1874, given the current circumstances."
The State Department Tuesday issued a joint statement with Japan to pledge that
they will cooperate closely in the six-party talks and other international forums
to denuclearize North Korea and "advance cooperative relations with China," the
host of the six-party talks since its inception in 2003.
Stephen Bosworth, special representative for North Korea policy, visited
Pyongyang last month in the first high-level contact with the North since
President Barack Obama took office last January, but failed to secure a
commitment from the North to return to the nuclear talks.
The U.S. point man on North Korea last week said that he hopes the talks will
resume "sometime in the next few weeks or months," but predicted a tough road
ahead.
U.S. officials have said they are ready to have another face-to-face bilateral
meeting with North Korea to facilitate the resumption of the six-party talks.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)

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