Nuclear talks hopes rise on Wang`s visit

A senior Chinese envoy met with North Korean officials yesterday amid intensifying diplomatic efforts to bring Pyongyang back to the stalled six-party nuclear talks.

Wang Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party`s international department, arrived in Pyongyang on Saturday for a four-day visit during which he is expected to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and deliver a message from Chinese President Hu Jintao on resuming the multinational talks.

He held talks with his North Korean counterpart Kim Yong-il and exchanged views on strengthening bilateral ties and matters of mutual concern, Pyongyang`s official Korean Central News Agency said.

Wang also attended a banquet on Saturday hosted by the director of international affairs at the North Korean Workers` Party, according to the KCNA.

The Chinese official met North Korea leader Kim in January last year when he visited North Korea as part of a regular exchange visit. Wang had met with Kim during his previous visits to Pyongyang in 2004, 2005 and 2008 as well.

As chair of the six-way dialogue, biggest aid donor and longtime ally to the North, China is anticipated to play a crucial role in bringing the reclusive state back to the nuclear negotiation table.



North Korea quit the six-party talks in April last year, angered by the United Nations Security Council`s condemnation of its menacing long-range missile test.

But Kim Jong-il told visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao later last year that his country may return to the talks following bilateral dialogue with the United States.

A special U.S. representative for North Korea policy, Stephen Bosworth, visited Pyongyang in December but the North has yet to declare its return to the six-party talks.

North Korea recently said it will rejoin the talks if the United States agrees to start negotiations on a peace treaty to replace the 1953 Armistice and lifts U.N. sanctions.

Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said last week no discussion about political or economic sanctions can take place before the disarmament talks are back on.

Discussions on the U.N. sanctions may take place this week, however, when Lynn Pascoe, a special envoy of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, visits Pyongyang from Feb. 9-12.

Pascoe, who serves as the U.N. undersecretary general for political affairs, arrived in Seoul on Saturday en route to Pyongyang.

During his four-day trip to Pyongyang, Pascoe is expected to urge North Korea to rejoin the nuclear talks and discuss its relations with the world body.

"We expect to talk about the entire range of issues while we are up there (in North Korea)," Pascoe told reporters in Seoul without elaborating when asked whether he will be discussing a possible removal of the U.N. sanctions imposed last year following the North`s second nuclear test in May.

Pascoe met with South Korean chief negotiator to the six-nation talks Wi Sung-lac and Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan later Saturday.

The 66-year-old former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia is the first ranking official of the world body to visit North Korea since the inauguration of the South Korea-born U.N. chief in 2007.

The U.N. envoy will leave Monday for China where he will likely catch a North Korean flight to Pyongyang.

In September, Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, met North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Park Gil-yon at the U.N. headquarters and discussed the North`s nuclear weapons program as well as humanitarian and human rights issues.

(sophie@heraldm.com)



By Kim So-hyun and news reports