Kim Sook, South Korea's nuclear envoy, talks to the media upon his arrival from Beijing at the Incheon International Airport in Incheon on Thursday. The top nuclear envoys from South Korea, the United States and Japan were preparing to meet next week to try resolving a deadlock in disarmament talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, the South's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. /AP

Observers speculate that the talks might revive trilateral dialogue, considering that the talks are being held at a time when a new conservative administration in Seoul is more friendly to such a structure.

Kim Sook from South Korea, Christopher Hill from the U.S., and Akitaka Saiki from Japan, will hold a series of bilateral talks on Sunday and trilateral talks on Monday.

A government official said, "The upcoming talks largely reflect the position of Japan, which has felt alienated in the rapidly proceeding process of finding a solution to the North Korean nuclear issue." Observers say Japan has failed to play a full role in the six-party talks because it has stuck to the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea. Japan reportedly wanted to hold close negotiations between the three countries, as the North Korean denuclearization process proceeded more rapidly than expected, with the U.S. expected to strike the North from the list of state sponsors of terrorism soon. Japan has reportedly been urging trilateral talks since early this year.

Another government official said, "Unlike the Roh Moo-hyun administration that felt unhappy about talks including Japan, the Lee Myung-bak administration's basic foreign policy principle is to further consolidate cooperation between Korea, the U.S. and Japan. The three countries have a common interest in such talks."

It remains to be seen whether the upcoming talks will develop into a regular dialogue channel similar to TCOG. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Moon Tae-young said the three chief negotiators “will have talks within the framework of the six-party talks,” which are quite separate from the TCOG setup.

An official involved in the six-party talks made comments leaving room for the possibility of such trilateral talks being held on a regular basis, saying, "The three countries have reached a consensus that they can meet any time if need be in the future as well."

The TCOG was set in motion in April 1999 during the Clinton administration, under the principle that if they hold talks with North Korea, any of the three countries should follow guidelines the three agreed on. At the time, negotiators of the three countries held frequent talks alternately in each country.

But the TCOG was disbanded after its last meeting in June 2003, when the Roh administration expressed concerns that trilateral talks might seem to put undue pressure on North Korea and conflict deepened between South Korea and Japan over the Dokdo Islets and Japanese distortions of colonial history.

The official said, "In the past, other countries shot suspicious glances at such separate trilateral talks. But now China doesn't seem to oppose them as long as they are helpful to the six-party talks, and North Korea doesn't seem to be very sensitive to such talks either."

(englishnews@chosun.com )