N. Korean officials arrive in Beijing for ‘1.5 track’ talks

Posted on : 2013-09-17 16:00 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Six-party talks members will all attend, with South Korea and Japan not sending chief negotiators

By Park Byong-su, staff reporter and Seong Yeon-cheol, Beijing correspondent

North Korea’s team of nuclear negotiators, including Kim Kye-gwan, first vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was dispatched to attend the “1.5 track” six-party talks that will be held in Beijing on Sep. 18. The seminar is supposed to bring together representatives from government and the private sector.

Along with Kim, North Korean Foreign Ministry vice minister Ri Yong-ho and deputy director-general Choi Son-hui arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport on Air Koryo flight JS221 on Sep. 16.

Without saying a single word to reporters asking about North Korea’s position on resuming the six-party talks, Kim got in a vehicle arranged by the North Korean embassy in Beijing and left the airport.

China had proposed holding a seminar in Beijing to commemorate the joint statement that was signed on Sep. 19, 2005, during the six-party talks. The seminar is to be attended by the chief six-party negotiators from the other countries that are parties to the talks (North and South Korea, the US, Russia, and Japan), along with experts from the private sector.

Initially, it was reported that North Korea would only be sending head negotiator Ri Yong-ho to the talks. But Pyongyang defied predictions by also sending Kim, who is the person in charge of nuclear negotiations for the North. This suggests that Pyongyang hopes to make full use of the seminar as an opportunity to get the six-party talks moving again.

In contrast, South Korea, the US, Russia, and Japan are reportedly not planning to send their chief negotiators from the six-party talks to the seminar.

South Korea has plans to send a minister-counselor from its embassy in China and a mid-ranking official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The US and Japan also reportedly intend to dispatch counselors or officials of an equivalent rank from their embassies in China.

“It would be meaningless for the chief negotiators for the six-party talks to meet until North Korea makes clear that it intends to dismantle its nuclear program,” said an official at South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on condition of anonymity. “That doesn’t mean, of course, that we can simply reject China’s request that we attend. We reached this decision after careful deliberation.”

Sources say that Russia is planning on having its deputy negotiator to the talks, Grigory Logvinov, attend the seminar. Logvinov is also Russia’s special envoy for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Korean private sector experts planning to participate are Yonsei University professor Moon Chung-in; Yoo Ho-yeol, professor at Korea University; and Lee Hee-ok, professor at Sungkyunkwan University.

Reports indicate that civilians participating from the US include Evans Revere, non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and former principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and pacific affairs, and Robert Carlin, a visiting scholar at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation and onetime North Korea analyst for the State Department.

 

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