Global Security Newswire

The senior nuclear negotiators from the United States and South Korea were scheduled to meet in Vienna on Monday for talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the Yonhap News Agency reported (see GSN, Nov. 11).

The South's Lim Sung-nam and Washington's Glyn Davies are both new in their roles as representatives to the moribund six-nation talks aimed at North Korean denuclearization.

The regional talks also include China, Japan, North Korea and Russia. The aid-for-denuclearization negotiations were last held nearly three years ago.

The two diplomats "will assess the developments related with the North Korean nuclear issue in the wake of the second round of U.S.-North Korea talks held in Geneva [in October] and exchange views in this regard," South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung-jae said.

Lim this week is also slated to confer with the Japanese representative to the six-nation talks, Shinsuke Sugiyama, as well as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell at the East Asia Summit on the island of Bali in Indonesia (Yonhap News Agency, Nov. 13).

Meanwhile, the South Korean government has formed an elite advisory board for President Lee Myung-bak to guide him in the build-up to the March Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, the Korea Herald reported.

The 15-member panel includes former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, onetime U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and ex-U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry.

The group is slated to convene for the first time on Nov. 29, according to the South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry.

"Whether the [eminent persons group] will have a second meeting before the summit in March will be decided later on," a ministry official said (Kim Yoon-mi, Korea Herald, Nov. 14).

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]