U.S. will issue visa for Ri Gun: reports

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (Yonhap) -- The United States has decided to allow a senior
North Korean official to attend a seminar in San Diego later this month, reports
said, amid talk of imminent bilateral negotiations between the U.S. and North
Korea over the latter's nuclear ambitions.
The U.S. government has decided to grant a visa to Ri Gun, director general of
the North American affairs bureau of North Korea's Foreign Ministry, Reuters
said, citing informed sources.
Ri, concurrently deputy to North Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, has
been invited to a seminar in San Diego Oct. 26-27 by the Northeast Asia
Cooperation Dialogue, organized by the Institute on Global Conflict and
Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego, to bring together
academics as well as government officials of the two Koreas, the U.S., China,
Russia and Japan, members of the six-way talks on ending North Korea's nuclear
ambitions.
Ri will likely meet with U.S. officials on the sidelines of the seminar to
prepare for possible bilateral talks between the two sides.
Ri visited New York last November to attend an academic seminar soon after the
election of Barack Obama as U.S. president, and met with Sung Kim, special envoy
for the six-party talks, and other U.S. officials and key policy advisers to
Obama.
Jung Tae-yang, vice director general of the American bureau of the North Korean
Foreign Ministry, attended last year's session in Beijing of the NEACD, as did
Alexander A. Arvizu, then-deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific
Affairs.
U.S. officials have said they have not yet made a decision on a possible visit to
Pyongyang by Stephen Bosworth, special representative for North Korea policy,
although they fell short of precluding bilateral talks with the North Koreans to
woo them back to the six-party table.
Pyongyang extended an invitation to Bosworth when former U.S. President Bill
Clinton visited Pyongyang in August to win the release of two American
journalists and discuss North Korean nuclear and other issues.
Rep. Hong Jung-wook of South Korea's ruling Grand National Party said last week
that working bilateral talks between the U.S. and North Korea, possibly involving
Bosworth's subordinate Sung Kim, will take place "within two weeks at the
earliest or a month at the latest."
North Korea has been boycotting the six-party negotiations, citing U.N. sanctions
for its nuclear and missile tests earlier this year, although its leader, Kim
Jong-il, recently expressed his willingness to return to the multilateral talks
on the condition that bilateral talks with the U.S. produce results.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed a possible bilateral dialogue
with North Korea earlier this week.
"We're looking to restart the six-party process," Clinton said. "We may use some
bilateral discussions to help get that process going, but that is not in any way
linked to relaxing any sanctions whatsoever."
hdh@yna.co.kr
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