Sung Kim not going to New York for meeting with N. Korea's Ri Gun: State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Yonhap) -- The chief U.S. nuclear negotiator will not go to
New York for another meeting with North Korean officials, the State Department
said Friday, amid reports that the sides have agreed on bilateral talks in
Pyongyang late next month.

Sung Kim, special envoy for the six-party talks, was supposed to meet Friday with
Ri Gun, director general of the North American affairs bureau of North Korea's
foreign ministry, on the margins of the seminar in New York sponsored by the
National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the Korea Society.
"He did not go to New York," deputy spokesman Robert Wood said in a daily news
briefing. "As far as I know, no other department officials are going to New
York."
Another official, asking anonymity, said that he did not see the need for further
contacts because Kim and Ri had enough time to meet informally on the sidelines
of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Dialogue (NEACD) Monday and Tuesday at the
University of California, San Diego.
Reports said that Ri and Kim had agreed on a visit to Pyongyang by Stephen
Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, late next month to
discuss restarting the six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear ambitions.
The talks have been stalled over U.N. sanctions for Pyongyang's nuclear and
missile tests.
Spokesman Ian Kelly Thursday dismissed the reports, saying, "The U.S. has made no
decision for Ambassador Bosworth to accept the invitation of North Korea to have
bilateral talks.
Kelly, however, left open the possibility of imminent bilateral negotiations in
the North Korean capital, saying, "But that doesn't mean that there's no progress
being made."
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il extended an invitation to the U.S. point man on
North Korea in August after months of provocations, and expressed his willingness
to come back to the six-party talks when he met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
earlier this month in Pyongyang.
However, the North Korean leader said bilateral talks with the U.S. should
precede any resumption of the multiparty forum.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week, "We are prepared to meet
bilaterally with North Korea within the framework of the six-party talks." But
she insisted the U.S. will not lift sanctions or normalize ties unless North
Korea takes irreversible steps toward denuclearization.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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