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Six-Party Talks Officials to Hold Meeting in Japan 9-11 April

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 April 2006, 09:00 CDT

Text of report by Naoko Aoki entitled: "Officials from six-party talks to gather in Tokyo next week", carried in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Beijing, 4 April: Senior officials involved in the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programmes will gather in Tokyo for an academic conference on security issues next week, Japanese and US government officials said Tuesday [4 April]. The meeting will be the first gathering of the delegates from the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia since the multilateral nuclear negotiations stalled after they were last held in Beijing in November.

Representing the United States in the conference will be Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill, said Michael Boyle, spokesman for the US embassy in Tokyo. Hill will meet with Japanese and South Korean delegates separately on the sidelines of the meeting, but there are currently no plans for him to meet with the North Koreans bilaterally, Boyle said.

The six-party talks have stalled after North Korea refused to return to the negotiating table unless the United States lifts financial sanctions it imposed on entities suspected of money laundering and counterfeiting for North Korea.

Jong Thae-yang, Pyongyang's deputy representative to the six- party talks, will represent North Korea at the meeting, Japanese government sources said. In a rare move, Japan has issued an entry permit to a four-person delegation led by Jong, deputy chief of the North Korean Foreign Ministry's US affairs department, for an 7-14 April stay, according to the sources. Japan and North Korea do not have diplomatic ties, and Tokyo rarely grants entry into the country by North Korean officials. When excluding a visit to Japan by North Korean sports officials in February last year for a World Cup soccer qualifying match, the last visit by North Korean officials was in October 2002, when North Korean Red Cross officials accompanied five Japanese returning home who had been abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s.

Japan's representative to the six-party talks is Kenichiro Sasae, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau. Seoul's chief delegate to the nuclear negotiations is Deputy Foreign Minister Chun Young-woo.

The academic meeting will be held from 9 to 11 April, taking up security issues in the Northeast Asian region. Some sessions involving a portion of the participants is also scheduled on 12 and 13 April.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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