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International negotiations on ending North Korea's nuclear ambition are expected to make rapid progress following the chief U.S. negotiator's surprise trip to the communist nation last week, while the countries involved in the six-way talks are hoping to gain further momentum with an unprecedented meeting of their foreign ministers.

South Korea's Foreign Minister Song Min-soon is scheduled to visit Washington this week for a meeting Thursday with his U.S. counterpart Condoleezza Rice on the nuclear talks and the possibility of a six-way foreign ministerial meeting in the near future.

Chun Yung-woo, Seoul's chief negotiator at the nuclear talks, also attended by North Korea, Japan, China and Russia, will also fly to the United States this week for talks with his U.S. counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, ministry officials said Sunday.

Song's U.S. visit follows Hill's two-day trip from Thursday to the North where he and his counterparts in Pyongyang discussed the schedule for the shutdown of North Korea's nuclear facilities at Yongbyon.

In a joint press conference with the South Korean envoy in Seoul on Friday, the U.S. diplomat said Pyongyang reaffirmed its denuclearization commitments under a February agreement.

"So away from this two-day set of meetings, I sense that we are going to be able to achieve our full objectives, that is complete denuclearization" of North Korea, Hill said.

He said the shutdown of the Yongbyon facility could take place as early as "within three weeks," while traveling to Tokyo on Saturday to brief his Japanese counterparts on the outcome of his Pyongyang trip.

Three weeks could pass in a blink of an eye considering the implementation of the February agreement has been stalled for three months. North Korea was supposed to completely seal its Yongbyon facility by April 14, but it refused to do so until its $25 million frozen at a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, was released.

The money was transferred to a North Korean account at a Russian commercial bank as of Saturday, a South Korean official said. Russia's Foreign Ministry later confirmed the transaction, saying the transfer "has now been completed."

A spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry reaffirmed his country's commitment to fulfill the February agreement at an early date Saturday, saying Hill's visit produced "comprehensive and productive" discussions.

The U.S., under mounting pressure for a quick and concrete diplomatic victory, is hoping to speed up the six-party process and completely denuclearize North Korea before the end of the year.

The chief U.S. nuclear envoy said he hoped to reopen the Beijing-based nuclear talks in early July, and the proposed six-way foreign ministerial talks before the end of the month.

"What we are trying to get to is the ministerial (meeting), which we would like to have in the late July timeframe," he told reporters in Japan.

North Korea, apparently sensing that it could quickly fall out of favor with the U.S., agreed, saying it would "examine the possibility of...opening a meeting of the foreign ministers of the six parties" in early August.

The sides also "had an in-depth exchange of views on the actions to be taken by each side in the next phase before agreeing to deepen contacts and consultations in the future," the North's Foreign Ministry spokesman said Saturday in a statement carried by the country's Korean Central News Agency.

A team of International Atomic Energy Agency officials are expected to arrive in Pyongyang Tuesday at the invitation of the reclusive North to discuss the shutdown of the Yongbyon complex.

The February agreement requires the communist state to irreversibly disable the Yongbyon facility and declare a complete list of all its nuclear programs in exchange for 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or other energy and economic assistance.

There are no deadlines for the implementation of the second-phase steps, but Seoul officials say the measures are quite achievable within the year as long as the North has the political will to do so.
SEOUL, June 24 (Yonhap News)