BEIJING/SEOUL, June 10 – Chief nuclear envoys of South Korea and China will hold talks in Beijing this week to discuss ways to resume long-stalled negotiations aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
Hwang Joon-kook, Seoul’s chief envoy for the six-party talks, will meet his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei during a two-day visit starting Tuesday, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It follows Hwang’s talks in Washington with U.S. envoy on North Korea Glyn Davies last week.
Hwang and Wu will “hold a wide-ranging consultation on the overall situation of the Korean Peninsula, including how to deal with the North Korean nuclear issue in the future,” said the foreign ministry.
A diplomatic source in Beijing said this week’s talks between Hwang and Wu are aimed at discussing ways to resume the six-party talks before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits South Korea later this month.
North Korea conducted its third nuclear test early last year and since then, Pyongyang has repeatedly expressed its willingness to reopen the six-party talks “without preconditions.”
The six-party forum, which includes the two Koreas, U.S. China, Russia and Japan, has been dormant since late 2008.
–BERNAMA
