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The two Koreas to discuss nuclear disarmament

Korea Envoys to Discuss Resuming Nuclear Talks, NYT, By CHOE SANG-HUN, September 16, 2011, SEOUL, South Korea — 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 here said Friday.

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 American 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 last November.

Efforts to resume the talks appeared to gain momentum with North Korea’s recent diplomatic outreach to Seoul and Washington….

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/world/asia/north-korea-south-korea-nuclear-envoys-to-meet.html

September 17, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | North Korea, politics international, South Korea