Japan's top nuke envoy due in Seoul next week

By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Jan. 23 (Yonhap) -- Japan's chief nuclear negotiator Akitaka Saiki will
visit Seoul next week to meet with his South Korean counterpart Kim Sook, sources
here said Friday.
Saiki, the head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs
Bureau, will also attend an annual meeting of Japanese envoys here, the sources
added.
Saiki will likely be briefed by Kim around Jan. 29 on the results of an
unprecedented trip by a team of South Korean nuclear envoys and civilian experts
to Pyongyang and the North's main nuclear site in Yongbyon last week.
The team, led by Seoul's deputy chief nuclear envoy Hwang Joon-kook, inspected
unused fuel rods stored at the nuclear complex to collect information before
deciding what to do with them. North Korea wants South Korea to purchase the
14,800 rods, which are equivalent to about 100 tons of uranium.
Removing the rods is one of the few remaining steps in the disablement of the
Yongbyon facilities under an aid-for-denculearization deal struck in 2007.
lcd@yna.co.kr
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