NKorean official to go to US for nuclear talks

FOSTER KLUG

MATTHEW LEE

Asso­ci­ated Press

HONG KONG — A senior North Korean offi­cial will visit the United States this week to dis­cuss the pos­si­ble resump­tion of long-stalled inter­na­tional nego­ti­a­tions on end­ing Pyongyang’s nuclear pro­grams, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton said Sunday.

The news that diplo­mats could be close to reviv­ing six-nation dis­ar­ma­ment talks that broke off in 2008 comes after more than a year of ani­mos­ity and high ten­sion between the rival Koreas and raises hopes in a region on edge. Two attacks Seoul blames on Pyongyang last year killed 50 South Kore­ans and led to threats of war.

Clinton’s invi­ta­tion for North Korean Vice For­eign Min­is­ter Kim Kye Gwan to visit New York fol­lows a cru­cial meet­ing Fri­day between nuclear nego­tia­tors from North and South Korea on the side­lines of a regional forum of the Asso­ci­a­tion of South­east Asian Nations, in Bali. It was the first such meet­ing since dis­ar­ma­ment talks col­lapsed in 2008, and the envoys agreed to work toward the resump­tion of six-nation negotiations.

The recent diplo­macy comes after more than a year of hard­line unity by Wash­ing­ton and Seoul since inter­na­tional inves­ti­ga­tors said a North Korean tor­pedo sank a South Korean war­ship in March of last year, killing 46 sailors. The South demanded the North show regret for the war­ship sink­ing and an artillery attack on a front-line South Korean island that killed four in November.

North Korea denies a role in the sink­ing and says South Korea pro­voked the island shelling. While refus­ing to apol­o­gize, how­ever, Pyongyang has repeat­edly shown a will­ing­ness to return to the dis­ar­ma­ment talks. The North is seen as need­ing a diplo­matic break­through and out­side food aid ahead of the 2012 cen­ten­nial of the birth of the country’s founder, Kim Il Sung.

“We are open to talks with North Korea, but we do not intend to reward the North just for return­ing to the table,” Clin­ton said in a state­ment announc­ing Kim Kye Gwan’s trip to the U.S. “We will not give them any­thing new for actions they have already agreed to take. And we have no appetite for pur­su­ing pro­tracted nego­ti­a­tions that will only lead us right back to where we have already been.”

The wari­ness is in line with past U.S. state­ments that ally Seoul must be sat­is­fied with the North’s sin­cer­ity before Wash­ing­ton will act.

Trav­el­ing with Clin­ton in Hong Kong, the top U.S. diplo­mat for Asia, Kurt Camp­bell, insisted that the talks were pre­lim­i­nary and aimed at lay­ing out steps the United States must see before resum­ing the nuclear nego­ti­a­tions or hav­ing a “more ful­some inter­ac­tion” with North Korea.

Camp­bell stressed that the United States would need to see much more from North Korea on improv­ing ties with the South and rejected sug­ges­tions that U.S. is now on a “fast track” to return­ing to the talks. “We need to see many more indi­ca­tions from the North Kore­ans before we approach that point,” he told reporters.

Dur­ing Kim’s trip, he will meet with a team of U.S. offi­cials to explore his country’s com­mit­ment to return­ing to the inter­na­tional talks and tak­ing con­crete steps toward dis­ar­ma­ment, Clin­ton said in the statement.

It was unclear what days Kim, the North’s for­mer chief nuclear envoy, will visit New York. The announce­ment fol­lows an ear­lier meet­ing between Clin­ton and the for­eign min­is­ters of South Korea and Japan in Bali.

The nuclear nego­ti­a­tions involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

North Korean For­eign Min­is­ter Pak Ui Chun said in com­ments released Sun­day by the country’s state media that the Korean penin­sula now stands “on the cross­roads of detente and the vicious cycle of esca­lat­ing tension.”

The coun­tries involved, Pak said, must “make the best use of (the) oppor­tu­nity of dia­logue and make a bold deci­sion to set­tle the fun­da­men­tal issue.”

Diplo­mats have been eager for the two rivals to ease tensions.

Since the last round of talks, North Korea has con­ducted a sec­ond nuclear test and revealed a ura­nium enrich­ment facil­ity that could give it another way to make atomic bombs.

Recent North Korean threats against Seoul’s con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment include a pledge to retal­i­ate over South Korean sol­diers’ use of pic­tures of the rul­ing North Korean fam­ily for tar­get practice.

The two Koreas remain in a tech­ni­cal state of war because their three-year con­flict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. The United States has 28,500 troops in the South. That pres­ence is cited by the North as a main fac­tor behind its need to build a nuclear program.

Posted by AP News on Jul 25 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.