S. Korea, China discuss nuke talks

Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan will today meet with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi to discuss international and regional issues, including their strategies and expectations for resuming the deadlocked six-nation talks for ending North Korea`s nuclear weapons programs, officials here said.

The Foreign Minister departed for China yesterday to first stop in Shanghai to review Seoul`s preparations for operating a Korean booth at the upcoming World Expo 2010 slated for May.

Yu also is expected to weigh the conditions for a possible visit to the exposition by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

The minister will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi today in Beijing, and also pay a visit to Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

"The six-party talks will naturally be on the agenda, especially as China is the chair of those talks. We also expect the ministers to confirm their positions that resumption must come soon," one diplomatic source said of the upcoming bilateral meeting.

Pyongyang has been boycotting the multilateral denuclearization talks since April last year. The last round of discussions was held in December 2008, but failed to bring about an ultimate denuclearization.

The North`s recent boycott of the talks came on the heels of a United Nations denouncement of the reclusive regime`s rocket launch.

Pyongyang, in addition to shunning the six-way discussions, also conducted its second nuclear test in May last year.



China, which had so far been supportive of North Korea due to their traditional close ties, carved a significant figure by siding with the stringent U.N. sanctions that followed the nuclear test.

As chair of the talks, Beijing also has been under mounting pressure from other discussion partners - the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia - of the six-way talks to attract the North back to the table.

Recent visits to Pyongyang by top Chinese officials including Wang Jiarui, head of international relations at the Communist Party are seen to have laid the framework for drawing the North closer to resuming the six-way talks.

"We are seeing positive trends, that is for certain," Wi Sung-lac, Seoul`s chief envoy to the nuclear talks said earlier this month following his visit to China.

The North, however, continues to maintain that it would return to the talks only after the United Nations lifts its sanctions, which are cited as being particularly painful due to Pyongyang`s deteriorating economic conditions.

North Korea also said talks for replacing the current Armistice Agreement on the peninsula with a permanent peace treaty should also be a priority discussion item for the six-nation talks.

Seoul and Washington have not budged in that they insist Pyongyang`s return to the negotiation tables must be unconditional, and also that the peace treaty may be discussed in a separate forum outside the six-way talks as previously agreed.

North Korea is currently reportedly seeking another one-on-one with Washington officials to negotiate more preconditions for helping resume the denuclearization discussions.

Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special envoy to the North, has indicated that the Obama government is not entirely opposed, but stressed the six-way talks must immediately resume following such bilateral discussions.

Bosworth was in Pyongyang in December last year for a rare trip, during which the North Koreans said they understood the need to resuscitate the nuclear negotiations.

During his visit to China, the South Korean Foreign Minister also hopes to tackle some bilateral issues.

He is to hold a meeting with China`s police chief Meng Jianzhu to request support and cooperation for the protection of some 700,000 South Korean residents and North Korean defectors in China.

The Foreign Minister will return home Friday.

(jemmie@heraldm.com)



By Kim Ji-hyun