"Korean diplomats to meet in Beijing; Renewed nuclear talks could open 6-nation dialogue" by Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times / September 17, 2011
SEOUL - The top nuclear negotiators from North and South Korea plan to meet next week in Beijing to discuss terms of restarting the long-stalled six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, a senior government official said yesterday.
Wi Sung Lac, the South Korean envoy, and his North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong Ho, will meet “in the middle of next week’’ to follow up on their meeting in Indonesia in July, said a South Korean Foreign Ministry official who briefed reporters in Seoul on condition of anonymity.
The July talks - and a subsequent meeting between Kim Kye Gwan, a senior North Korean diplomat, and Stephen W. Bosworth, the chief US envoy on North Korean affairs - ended without agreement on resuming the six-nation talks.
The nuclear disarmament negotiations, which include the United States, China, Russia, and Japan, collapsed in 2008 in a dispute over how thoroughly North Korea should reveal its nuclear activities and open its nuclear facilities to outside inspections.
North Korea has since tested a nuclear device and a long-range rocket that might one day be capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
It also revealed that it had an industrial-scale uranium enrichment plant.
Tensions further spiked when North Korea shelled a South Korean island in November.
Efforts to resume the talks appeared to gain momentum with North Korea’s recent diplomatic outreach to Seoul and Washington.
South Korea and the United States are demanding that North Korea stop all of its nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment program, before talks can resume.
But North Korea has insisted that those demands be discussed only after talks resume.
Officials in South Korea suspect that North Korea wants to offer the suspension of its nuclear facilities once again as a negotiating card to extract concessions.
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