SEOUL, Oct 7: South Korean, US and Japanese nuclear envoys will held a trilateral meeting in Washington in the coming days to coordinate positions following the failed working-level nuclear talks between the United States and North Korea in Stockholm, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
According to the statement, Lee Do-hoon, South Korean special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, will visit the United States from October 7 to 10 and discuss the results of the talks in Sweden with US special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun.
“During the meeting, the sides will discuss a cooperation plan to achieve progress on the full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the strengthening of permanent peace,” the ministry said.
According to the statement, Lee will also hold a meeting with Shigeki Takizaki, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, who will visit Washington during the same period. After that, the three diplomats will hold a trilateral meeting.
On Saturday, the North Korean delegation headed by chief negotiator Kim Myong Gil held working-level denuclearization talks with the US delegation headed by Biegun in Sweden. These were the first talks since the high-level summit in Hanoi in February. However, without waiting for the negotiations to end, North Korean diplomats left the meeting’s venue, after which Kim said the working negotiations with the United States had failed. According to the diplomat, as quoted by the Yonhap News Agency, the United States came empty-handed.
The United States has refuted North Korea’s claims that the Saturday denuclearization talks were not a success, with the US State Department pointing to some new initiatives that could help make progress in the negotiations
The negotiations were supposed to focus on making progress in the implementation of the agreement reached during the first US-North Korean summit in Singapore in June 2018. The agreement included a set of obligations to establish new bilateral relations, achieve peace and work toward the full denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
On Sunday, the North Korean Foreign Ministry warned the United States that if Washington did not get rid of a “hostile policy” toward Pyongyang and did not propose a realistic solution to denuclearization by the end of the year, North Korea would not continue negotiations.
(agencies)
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