Concerning Kerry’s stance that the reduction of USFK is untimely, Ambassador Han said in a meeting with Korean correspondents that there might be technical adjustments in the schedule of USFK reduction and relocation as well as the Yongsan Base relocation, but that no big changes would be made in the existing agreement, since the reduction of USFK has been pushed ahead before the Bush administration took office as part of the U.S.’s global posture review.

In regard to the resumption of the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, Ambassador Han said that considering the North is waiting for the U.S. presidential election result to come out and it has not completely discarded the dialogue option, it was possible that the six-party talks could be restarted within this year if Bush is reelected. Even if Kerry is elected, the six-party talks could be resumed soon and it would not take much time to devise and implement North Korea policies because the Kerry camp is accepting advice from those who participated in negotiations with North Korea during the Clinton administration, expected ambassador Han.

Concerning Kerry’s position that he would directly negotiate with North Korea, Han explained that even if Kerry holds bilateral talks with the North, he would endorse the two-party talks within the framework of the existing six-party talks and report the results of the bilateral talks to the multilateral meeting and seek consent and cooperation from other participants.

(Heo Yong-beom, heo@chosun.com )