hankyoreh

2008.

With North Korea set to launch what it says is a “satellite” sometime between April 4 and 8, the countries participating in the six party talks are busy working to have them resume again.

South Korea’s top delegate to the six party talks Wi Sung Lac is in Beijing for March 24-25 to talk with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei. A South Korean Foreign Ministry Spokesperson said March 23 that Wi and Wu will talk about “things like North Korea’s missile launch and the six party talks.”

The spokesperson added that Wi will soon go to Washington D.C. to meet with US special representative for North Korea policy Stephen Bosworth and top US delegate to the six party talks, Sung Kim. Akitaka Saiki, the head of Japan’s delegation to the talks, also met with Wu Dawei, on March 22 in Beijing. The two had met previously in Tokyo on March 16.

China, which holds the chairmanship of the six party process, appears to be especially eager to see their resumption. During a meeting March 18 with North Korean Prime Minister Kim Yong-il, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao took the unusual step of saying his country “demands the swift resumption of the six party talks.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met with U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton in Washington, D.C. on March 11-12 and discussed the North Korean nuclear issue. Earlier, from March 3 to March 10, Stephen Bosworth and Sung Kim toured Korea, China, and Japan to talk about North Korea’s “satellite” launch and a strategy for proceeding with the six-party process.

“The Chinese want the six party talks to resume quickly, but if North Korea fires a missile like it says it will, the political situation in Northeast Asia is inevitably going to get tense,” said a South Korean government official.

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