S.Korea, Japan, U.S. meet to discuss nuclear talks

SEOUL (Reuters) – Negotiators from South Korea, Japan and
the United States will meet on Thursday to hammer out a
strategy for coaxing North Korea into ending its nuclear arms
programs at six-country talks this month.

The meeting comes a day after Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said Washington and Seoul were optimistic that
North Korea, enticed by a new offer of energy aid, might agree
to scrap its nuclear plans.

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon is
hosting Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and
Japanese Foreign Ministry Director General Kenichiro Sasae at
Thursday’s talks in Seoul.

The three will head their respective delegations at the
long-stalled six-way negotiations, which also include Russia
and China. Pyongyang agreed at the weekend to return to the
talks, which the communist state had boycotted since June,
2003.

South Korea has promised massive energy aid if the North
dismantles its nuclear programs and hopes the supply of 2,000
megawatts of electricity — doubling the North’s current power
production — will address a key concern of the impoverished
state.

Three-way consultations such as Thursday’s meeting, which
was to begin around 4:30 p.m. (0730 GMT), have preceded
previous rounds of six-country talks on North Korea and have
been a forum for coordinating strategy.

A backup plan was also needed in case the talks failed,
said Ralph Cossa, the president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a
prominent think tank on Asian affairs based in Hawaii.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting Chinese
envoy on Wednesday he anticipated substantive progress at the
talks planned to begin in the week of July 25.

“Kim Jong-il hoped that the six-party talks would be
resumed as scheduled and positive progress be made at the
talks,” the North’s official KCNA news agency quoted him as
telling Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan.

Kim Young-yoon of Seoul’s Korea Institute of National
Unification stressed that the North still held the main card.

“The problem is North Korea has to agree to dismantle its
nuclear programs. That decision is completely up to the North
to make,” Kim, an expert on the North Korean economy, wrote in
South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper.