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S.Korea, Japan, U.S. meet to discuss nuclear talks

Posted on: Thursday, 14 July 2005, 00:33 CDT

SEOUL (Reuters) - Negotiators from South Korea, Japan and the United States will meet on Thursday to hammer out a strategy for coaxing North Korea into ending its nuclear arms programs at six-country talks this month.

The meeting comes a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington and Seoul were optimistic that North Korea, enticed by a new offer of energy aid, might agree to scrap its nuclear plans.

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon is hosting Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and Japanese Foreign Ministry Director General Kenichiro Sasae at Thursday's talks in Seoul.

The three will head their respective delegations at the long-stalled six-way negotiations, which also include Russia and China. Pyongyang agreed at the weekend to return to the talks, which the communist state had boycotted since June, 2003.

South Korea has promised massive energy aid if the North dismantles its nuclear programs and hopes the supply of 2,000 megawatts of electricity -- doubling the North's current power production -- will address a key concern of the impoverished state.

Three-way consultations such as Thursday's meeting, which was to begin around 4:30 p.m. (0730 GMT), have preceded previous rounds of six-country talks on North Korea and have been a forum for coordinating strategy.

A backup plan was also needed in case the talks failed, said Ralph Cossa, the president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a prominent think tank on Asian affairs based in Hawaii.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting Chinese envoy on Wednesday he anticipated substantive progress at the talks planned to begin in the week of July 25.

"Kim Jong-il hoped that the six-party talks would be resumed as scheduled and positive progress be made at the talks," the North's official KCNA news agency quoted him as telling Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan.

Kim Young-yoon of Seoul's Korea Institute of National Unification stressed that the North still held the main card.

"The problem is North Korea has to agree to dismantle its nuclear programs. That decision is completely up to the North to make," Kim, an expert on the North Korean economy, wrote in South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper.

Source: REUTERS

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