Six-Way Talks To be Held Regularly

On November 20, Tokyo Shimbun reported that the five countries-Korea, the U.S., China, Russia, Japan-have consented in principle that the six-way talks should be regularly held until the North Korea nuclear problem is entirely solved.

Tokyo Shimbun added that it would take a long time to carry on the six-way talks. Because of this, the delay might permit time for North Korea to resume its nuclear weapon development. The intention of this agreement is also to prevent the six-way talks from developing into a diplomatic privilege for North Korea.

It has been reported that China has recently suggested that the talks should be held on a regular basis to the participants, and all except North Korea have agreed to it. They are working on the details of the regular meetings. On November 19, according to this movement, Dai Binguo, the deputy foreign minister of China, was scheduled to visit North Korea, just after James Kelly wraps up his itinerant schedule in North Korea, in order to nail down the schedule for the next six-way talks, which was actually agreed to be held in December, said the U.S. person in authority.

The source in Washington revealed that the five countries, excluding North Korea, hope to hold the next meeting in mid-December, and North Korea has also given affirmative responses to it. “The definitive date for the meeting has not yet decided upon because it takes several days for North Korea to finalize its position,” remarked the source.

On November 19, on the other hand, Franco Fratini, the Italian foreign minister (The EU chooses a specific country to represent itself, and currently it is now Italy’s turn) passed on that EU would send its delegation to North Korea from December 9 to 11.

On this day, Fratini met with Yoon Young-kwan, Korean foreign minister who is currently visiting Italy, and said, “In order to take a firm grip on the North Korean nuclear weapon situation, we have decided to dispatch our delegation to North Korea.”

The EU has stated that they would stand up for mediating the North Korea nuclear weapon problem. It tried to dispatch its delegation early in this year but had to call it off since they could not nail down the specific date of interview with Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader.

parkwj@donga.com