Naharnet

S. Korea, U.S. Envoys to Meet on N.Korea in Vienna

South Korea's nuclear envoy Lim Sung-Nam will meet a top U.S. official in Vienna next week for talks on ways to revive stalled negotiations on North Korea's nuclear disarmament, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

The meeting with Glyn Davies, new U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, will be held during Lim's two-day trip to Vienna from Monday, the ministry said.

It will be Lim's first meeting with Davies, who has yet to step down from his current post as U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Lim also plans to meet IAEA director general Yukiya Amano.

The ministry said South Korea, Japan and the U.S. would seek to hold trilateral talks on North Korea during the East Asia Summit in Indonesia next week.

After a second round of talks in Geneva last month, Pyongyang and Washington reported some progress, but U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said later that there was no breakthrough.

Six-party negotiations involving the U.S., China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia have been at a standstill since the last session in December 2008.

The North formally quit the six-party forum in April 2009, a month before staging its second atomic weapons test.

It has since repeatedly said it wants to come back without preconditions to the negotiations but Washington and its allies say Pyongyang must first take steps to show its sincerity.

Source: Agence France Presse


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