Report: Two Koreas May Hold More Nuclear Talks Soon
North and South Korean negotiators are likely to meet next week for a second round of talks aimed at restarting stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations, a news report said Friday.
The South's chief nuclear negotiator Wi Sung-Lac and his counterpart Ri Yong-Ho of North Korea are likely to hold talks in Beijing, possibly on Wednesday, Yonhap news agency said.
"At this stage, high-level authorities of South and North Korea are exploring the possibility of holding talks in Beijing," it quoted an unidentified senior government official as saying.
A director for foreign press at the foreign ministry said she had no information.
The two envoys held talks in July on the Indonesian island of Bali -- the first-ever North-South meeting on nuclear issues outside the six-party format.
It was followed by a U.S.-North Korean meeting in New York aimed at restarting the talks grouping China, Japan, the United States, the two Koreas and Russia.
The North abandoned the six-party talks in April 2009 and conducted its second nuclear test a month later. But diplomatic efforts to restart the dialogue have picked up this summer.
The North's leader Kim Jong-Il reportedly told President Dmitry Medvedev during a visit to Russia last month that Pyongyang was ready to resume the dialogue.
Kim also expressed readiness to impose a moratorium without preconditions on enrichment work and testing once the forum restarted, according to the Kremlin.
But both the United States and South Korea dismissed the proposal as nothing new, with Seoul calling for action before the discussions resume.
In addition to its plutonium program, which is believed to have produced enough material for six to eight bombs, the North last November disclosed a uranium enrichment plant.
It says this is for peaceful energy use but experts say it could easily be reconfigured to make material for atomic weapons.
Source: Agence France Presse
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