Global Security Newswire

New top South Korean nuclear negotiator Lim Sung-nam is scheduled to travel to China this week for talks on options for reinvigorating the paralyzed six-nation negotiations on North Korean denuclearization, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 28).

Lim is slated to meet with his Chinese opposite, Wu Dawei, in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the South Korean Foreign Ministry.

The nuclear envoys are to discuss last week's meeting of U.S. and North Korean officials in Geneva, Switzerland. The two-day session, the second since July between Pyongyang and Washington, was said to have achieved some headway toward reducing differences over relaunching the six-nation talks that also involve Japan and Russia.

China supports a speedy restart to negotiations while South Korea and the United States are insisting Pyongyang must first make concrete demonstrations of its commitment to irreversible nuclear disarmament (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Oct. 30).

Lim last week traveled to Russia, where he conferred with officials on prospects for revitalizing the nuclear talks, United Press International reported.

"Russia is viewing the two rounds of South-North and North-U.S. talks positively," Lim said in an interview with the Yonhap News Agency.

Lim said he intended to "further increase joint efforts with Russia to solve North Korean issues on the basis of strategic partnerships" (United Press International, Oct. 29).

Meanwhile, a prominent issue expert said the North is "more likely than not" to detonate a third nuclear test device in 2012, the Daily NK reported on Monday.

"If Pyongyang is determined to proceed with a more credible nuclear deterrent force, as distinct from a largely symbolic capability, additional testing is only a question of time," according to Brookings Institution senior fellow Jonathan Pollack.

"A third nuclear test, very possibly utilizing highly enriched uranium as fissile material, is a distinct possibility, perhaps intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth in 2012; additional missile testing (even if cloaked as a satellite launch) seems equally plausible," Pollack continued.

Pyongyang conducted its two earlier tests at three-year intervals in 2006 and 2009, which establishes a pattern for a detonation next year, Pollack said.

He cautioned, though, that "no one should expect a precise schedule for future weapons testing."

The results of general elections next year in the South and in the United States are also likely to be factored into Pyongyang's decisions, he said (Tang Hwa-kwee, Daily NK, Oct. 31).