(2nd LD) Seoul hopes for resumption of six-party talks next month: FM

(ATTN: UPDATES with additional remarks, more details from 7th para)
SEOUL, Jan. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan expressed
hope Friday that the stalled six-way talks on ending North Korea's nuclear
program would be resumed next month.

Yu said the nuclear negotiations are "expected to resume shortly before or after
Lunar New Year's Day." The Lunar New Year holidays fall on Feb. 13-15. He added
that the countries involved in the talks are discussing the matter.
South Korea's top nuclear negotiator, Wi Sung-lac, flew to Washington this week
to discuss ways to resume the nuclear negotiations.
Yu added, however, that there is no immediate plan or agreement among the
participating countries to resume the nuclear talks, despite their growing
understanding of the need to restart the negotiations, last held in December
2008.
"A consensus is building among five countries -- South Korea, the United States,
Japan, China and Russia (about the imminent resumption of the talks)," the
foreign minister told a press briefing.
North Korea has said it will not return to the six-way talks unless U.N.-imposed
sanctions on Pyongyang are first removed.
The South Korean foreign minister said there was a common understanding among the
five countries that U.N. sanctions can not and will not be removed until the
North first returns to the nuclear talks and shows progress toward
denuclearization.
Saying that the resumption of the six-party talks was up to North Korea, which
said in April last year that it had permanently quit the negotiations, Yu said
that the communist nation also understands the U.N.-sanctions can only be removed
by the U.N. Security Council when there is progress in its denuclearization
process.
"I believe North Korea, too, understands this, and so the resumption of the
six-party talks depends on how North Korea decides," he said.
China, a close ally of North Korea and the host of the nuclear talks that began
in 2003, also understands the need to get the talks moving again, Yu said.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)

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