U.S. nuclear envoy to visit this week

A senior U.S. nuclear official will visit South Korea this week to discuss resumption of the multilateral forum aimed at ending North Korea‘s nuclear programs, officials here said.

Sung Kim, Washington’s special envoy to the six-party talks, will visit Seoul on a three-day visit from Wednesday to attend a security forum hosted by the Unification Ministry. Officials at Seoul‘s Foreign Ministry said Kim will also meet his counterparts here for discussions on the six-party talks and recent U.S. sanctions on Pyongyang.

The six-party talks, which opened in 2003, involve the two Koreas, the U.S., Russia, Japan and host China. The discussions have been on hold since December 2008 on a North Korean boycott.

The North’s torpedoing of the South Korean warship Cheonan in March also dampened the mood for resuming the talks.

Kim‘s trip comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activities by dialogue partners to push for the restart of the nuclear talks. Wi Sung-lac, South Korea’s top nuclear representative, was in Washington over the weekend, meeting his U.S. counterparts. Wu Dawei, the chief Chinese nuclear envoy, recently visited Pyongyang, Seoul, Tokyo and then Washington.

“Kim will sit down with our officials to review what was discussed between the U.S. and China and then review bilateral issues between the U.S. and South Korea,” a Foreign Ministry official here said. “He will also exchange opinions with us on the recent U.S. sanctions on North Korea.”

Regional powers remain divided over the next course of action for the stalled nuclear talks. South Korea maintains North Korea must first apologize for sinking the Cheonan and take concrete steps toward denuclearization. 

Wi told reporters in Washington on Saturday that he believed it was “premature” to resume the six-party talks at this juncture.

“I am not saying we are not going to participate in the six-party talks, but I am saying it‘s premature to go to the six-party talks at this point,” he said after meeting with Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and other U.S. officials to discuss the reopening of the negotiations stalled over U.N. sanctions for the North’s missile and nuclear tests. “We need to work for the environment for the six-party talks.”

Wi’s remarks are in line with State Department spokesman Philip Crowley, who on Wednesday dismissed Wu Dawei‘s proposal for another bilateral contact between the U.S. and North Korea.