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Government officials said Wednesday that it seemed the restart of the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue, which have been stalled for the last nine months since the conclusion of the third round of discussions, would be decided around this weekend.
They have their reasons for expecting so. The most important of these was the visit to Beijing by First Vice-Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju, the virtual field general of North Korean diplomacy. Kang, who arrived in China on Saturday, returned to Pyongyang on Wednesday. He is a top policy maker who reports directly to Kim Jong-il on the nuclear issue. That he would stop by China, the host nation of the six-party talks, leads to speculation that he held focused consultations on North Korea's position and the cards it wished to play during the six-party talks. In fact, he met with major Chinese figures involved in the six-party talks, including State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan and Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo.
Ahead of this, the North Korean Foreign Ministry attempted in a March 31 statement to change the agenda of the talks, saying the discussion needed to become one of disarmament. It did not, however, repeat a demand that Washington apologize for calling Pyongyang an "outpost of tyranny." With Kang visiting China amidst these positive signs, officials in Seoul are carefully reading this as an omen that Korea will soon rejoin the six-party talks.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, on visit to Pakistan to attend the fourth meeting of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue, is known to have heard the results of Kang's visit to Beijing from Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing. He will also meet with the Japanese foreign minister on Thursday, and soon afterwards make use of Korea-U.S. negotiating channels concerning the nuclear issue. Observers forecast that once this round of contacts between six-party talk participants concludes, the outline of the next round of talks will begin to materialize.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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