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North Korean, U.S. Officials Meet Informally
Expectations for progress on resuming the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program were low as officials from Pyongyang and Washington met informally yesterday at an academic conference in New York, Reuters reported (see GSN, June 30). “If it's useful, you'll soon hear of a date” for restarting talks, a U.S. official said (Reuters/New York Times, June 30). State Department spokesman Sean McCormack played down the importance of the informal talks, according to Agence France-Presse. “No meetings are scheduled between U.S. and North Korean officials outside the context of the conference proceedings,” he said, adding that no date has been chosen to resume six-party talks. McCormack acknowledged that North Korean diplomat Ri Gun attended a dinner with U.S. envoy Joseph DeTrani on Wednesday. “They were in the same room together. I have no indications that this was anything other than a social event. There was nothing that I would characterize last night as a meeting,” he said (Agence France Presse I/SpaceWar.com, June 30). Meanwhile, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon said today that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill could visit North Korea in an effort to boost resumption of talks. “I believe Hill could visit North Korea,” Ban told Seoul’s Hankyoreh newspaper. “He has already visited South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, which are involved in the talks. There is no reason for him to skip North Korea.” Ban noted that North Korea and the United States could engage in bilateral talks within the six-party talk framework, AFP reported. However, he rejected a North Korean proposal for talks only with the United States. “We cannot accept North Korea’s demand. The United States, China, Russia, Japan are all the same,” he said (Agence France-Presse II, July 1).
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