North Korea's chief nuclear envoy embarked on a rare trip to the United States on Tuesday while South Korea sent a top official to Pyongyang to persuade the North to quickly start scrapping its nuclear arms programme.
North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan arrived in Beijing on Tuesday en route for talks with US officials, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Reclusive North Korea agreed earlier this month at six-way talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor, the source of its weapons-grade plutonium, in return for energy aid. It separately said it would halt its seven-month boycott of talks with Seoul. North Korea has few air links with the outside world and its officials often travel via China.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said on Tuesday that North Korea needed repeated reassurance it would not be threatened by force before it would give up its nuclear arms.
"This is a matter of mutual relationships," Roh told a news conference, saying US policy on the North "had not been consistent like South Korea's" and suggesting Pyongyang had reason to be wary of US overtures. Roh added that until ties between Washington and Pyongyang had improved considerably, it would be futile for the two Koreas' leaders to meet in a summit.
The rival states began a four-day meeting in Pyongyang on Tuesday, their first high-level contact in seven months. Seoul officials said family reunions and food aid for the impoverished North would be on the agenda.
"The most important thing to discuss would be how to cooperate between the South and North to swiftly implement the February 13 nuclear agreement," South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said before leaving for Pyongyang.
North Korea's July 2006 missile launches and October 9 nuclear test chilled what had been improving ties between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war more than half a century after their 1950-53 conflict.
Seoul has said it could resume the food aid it suspended after the missile tests if it saw progress in the six-way talks on ending Pyongyang's pursuit of atomic weapons. South Korea was likely to send the first batch of energy aid to Pyongyang if it began shutting down its reactor.
Analysts said the North's recent diplomatic actions, coming after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions in response to its nuclear test, were encouraging but it was best to be cautious until Pyongyang actually delivered on its pledges.
The US State Department said on Monday that nuclear envoy Kim might visit San Francisco to meet non-governmental groups and then go to New York for talks with his US counterpart. Such talks are envisaged under the February 13 nuclear agreement. The agreement, reached four months after Pyongyang stunned the world with its first nuclear test, requires the secretive communist state to allow international nuclear inspections.
The deal also called for a working group on normalisation of US-North Korean relations to meet within 30 days. The United States proposed that it meet in New York, where US and North Korean officials sometimes have contact. The head of the UN nuclear watchdog said last week he would meet the North Korean government in March to discuss the shutdown of its nuclear arms programme and bringing it back under UN supervision.
Comments
Comments are closed.