hankyoreh

On May 30 in Beijing, the chief South and North Korean negotiators to the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, Kim Sook of the South and Kim Kye-gwan of the North, held a bilateral meeting.

“This (May 30) afternoon, Kim met the North Korean deputy foreign minister Kim at the Diaoyutai state guesthouse for about an hour,” a South Korean government official said. It’s the first time that the two nuclear envoys from the two Koreas held a meeting since the inauguration of the government of President Lee Myung-bak.

The unexpected meeting in Beijing between the two negotiators was believed to have taken place after the two sides had arranged the bilateral talks. However, it is not clear how the two Koreas arranged the meeting or what the two envoys were saying during the talks.

Although the Beijing meeting was apparently aimed at jumpstarting the six-party negotiations, there are various interpretations, because the meeting was made after relations between South and North Korea have been completely severed. “While the North doesn’t respond to a government-level discussion with the South, the Beijing meeting indicated that the North may intend to manage inter-Korean relations under the frame of six-party talks,” said Kim Seong-bae, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Strategy.

An expert, who asked not to be named, said, “It’s difficult to say because the talks’ background or outcome weren’t known.” “Given the North’s intention to strictly separate inter-Korean relations from the six-party talks, I think North Korea had tried to discuss only the agenda for the six-party talks at today’s meeting,” the expert said. “Since South Korea is a host nation of the working-level committee for energy and economic cooperation at the six-party negotiations and is in charge of providing heavy oil aid to North Korea, the North may find it difficult to fully ignore the South under the frame of six-party talks,” the expert said.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]