First up is the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Sydney on Sept. 8-9. The leaders of the nations in six-party nuclear talks except North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will gather for the summit. On the sidelines, various bilateral or trilateral talks are scheduled between the leaders of South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan, and Russia that are expected to touch on denuclearization efforts.

Sightseers gaze at North Korea from the Unification Observatory in Paju on Sunday. The second inter-Korean summit was postponed to Oct. 2. /Yonhap

President Roh Moo-hyun is scheduled to hold a summit with U.S. President George W. Bush before the inter-Korean summit talks. It is likely that the upcoming Seoul-Washington summit will be held in Washington in late September at Bush's invitation. The South Korean-U.S. summit is expected to discuss the issues of declaring the end of the Korean War and replacing the armistice with a peace agreement. With the inter-Korean summit postponed, it is known that the Seoul-Washington summit might move up to the period of the APEC summit.

Then there is another round of the six-party talks in early September and a meeting of the foreign ministers from the six nations late in the month. The foreign ministers' meeting is expected to deal with denuclearization, and establishment of diplomatic relations between Pyongyang and Washington and between Pyongyang and Tokyo. Besides, working-group meetings will be held in August and September to tackle the rewards the North can expect for disabling its nuclear programs.

(englishnews@chosun.com )