Top U.S. envoy: Rushing back to negotiation will be a mistake

Special Representative for North Korea Policy Ambassador Sung Kim said on Friday regarding resumption of the six party talks for denuclearization of North Korea, "North Korea needs to demonstrate their serious commitment to denuclearization before we can resume any negotiations." Special Envoy Kim added, "It will be a mistake for us (five parties without the North) to rush back to negotiations unless we can have some confidence that the North Koreans are ready to work with us." Kim’s remarks reconfirm the previous stance that denuclearization of North Korea must be "Complete and Verifiable Irreversible Denuclearization (CVID)."

After talks with Hwang Joon-kook, Seoul`s special representative for peace and security affairs on the Korean Peninsula (South Korea’s chief representative at the six party talks for denuclearization of North Korea) at foreign ministry office in Jongno District, Seoul, earlier in the day, Kim said, “The U.S. is open to diplomacy with the North but they have shown very little interest in engaging us in a substantive manner on the important topic of denuclearization." This is the first meeting between South Korean and the U.S. representatives for denuclearization of North Korea since North Korean special envoy Choe Ryong Hae’s recent visit to Russia. Kim’s remarks are interpreted as a response to North Korea and Russia’s claim that “To resume the talks, it must be without preconditions.”

South Korea’s top nuclear envoy Hwang returned to Korea after his visit to Russia from Dec. 1 to 3, which aimed to figure out the backgrounds and meaning of the North Korea-Russia consensus. Regarding the 1.5 track (half-government half-private) meeting among North Korea and the U.S. experts to be held in Singapore, Hwang said, “The U.S. government has never been involved in organization of the meeting and there are lots of similar meetings. I will not give a special meaning to it.”

Kim, who had served as the U.S. ambassador to South Korea by October 2014, is currently also Deputy Assistant Secretary for Korea and Japan. On Monday, he will visit to Japan and have discussions on North Korea nuclear issue, South Korea-Japan relations, North Korea-Japan abductee negotiations, the U.S.-Japan defense collaboration guideline revision issues. The Special Envoy will visit China on Wednesday, with schedules to return to the U.S. on Friday.