Roh's chief security advisor flies to U.S. over peace initiatives

Posted on : 2007-12-03 14:16 KST Modified on : 2007-12-03 14:16 KST

President Roh Moo-hyun's chief security policy secretary left for the U.S. Monday for discussions on accelerating the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program and establishing a new peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.

"Coinciding with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill's visit to North Korea, Washington officials and I will naturally discuss bilateral cooperation in the denuclearization of the North, including compensation for its nuclear disablement," Baek told reporters at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, before his departure.

"While meeting with Kim Yang-gon, director of the United Front Department of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, in Seoul last week, President Roh already clarified the South Korean government's message calling for the North to faithfully declare its nuclear programs," said Baek.

Baek said he will also hold discussions over a new peace regime on the Korean Peninsula and ratification of the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement.

During his four-day visit to Washington, Baek Jong-chun will meet with White House National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and other ranking U.S. officials to exchange views on a wide range of issues, including progress in the disablement of North Korea's nuclear program, the outlook for the six-nation denuclearization talks and the South Korea-U.S. alliance, Cheong Wa Dae said.

Baek and his U.S. counterpart are expected to engage in in-depth discussions on whether to hold a four-nation summit to declare the official end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to a source at Cheong Wa Dae.

Roh proposed in early November that leaders of the Koreas, the U.S. and China meet to issue a declaration on the scrapping of North Korea's nuclear program and the signing of a Korean Peninsula peace treaty, saying that a four-nation summit declaration would serve as a milestone leading to the official end of the Korean War and the establishment of a peace regime on the peninsula.

Roh and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il signed a joint declaration in Pyongyang in early October calling for a three- or four-nation summit to discuss the official ending of the Korean War and a Korean peace treaty. The Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula technically in a state of war.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, while meeting with Roh in Singapore in late November, said Beijing would fully support the two Koreas' effort to hold an international summit meeting for discussion of a new peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

But the U.S. has contended that an official declaration of the end of the Korean War will not be possible before the verified denuclearization of North Korea.


SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Yonhap)

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