South Korea’s top nuclear envoy, Hwang Joon-kook, said Wednesday he will discuss with his Chinese counterpart about how to inject a “new momentum” to restart the long-stalled multilateral talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Hwang, who held talks with his U.S. counterpart, Ambassador Sung Kim, in Washington earlier this week, made the remarks upon his arrival at the Beijing airport before holding talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, later in the day.
“During a meeting with Special Representative Wu Dawei, we will hold an in-depth discussion about ways on how to inject a new momentum to resume the denuclearization talks,” Hwang said.
Hwang said the current situation in North Korea is “fluid,” without elaborating further.
The six-party talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear ambition, involving South Korea, North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, have been dormant since late 2008.
Since then, North Korea has advanced its nuclear capabilities by conducting its second and third nuclear tests, in 2009 and 2013.
Some experts now warn that the communist nation’s nuclear arsenal could expand to 100 bombs by 2020.
In Washington on Tuesday, Hwang told reporters that five of the nations involved in the six-party talks are now ready to hold “exploratory talks” with North Korea without any preconditions to test the communist nation’s denuclearization commitment before resuming formal negotiations.
Exploratory talks can take any format, multilateral or bilateral, Hwang said.
Still, it remains uncertain how North Korea, which has shown no signs of abandoning its nuclear weapons program, would respond to the move by the five countries. (Yonhap)
