Six-Party Talks Could Resume Soon

The six-party talks may be resuming sooner rather than later.

U.S. and South Korean chief delegates held meetings with Wu Dawei, China’s vice minister of foreign affairs, on January 21-23 in Beijing, the venue for the talks, to set a possible resumption date for the talks and the agenda.

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill said on the morning of January 22 before returning to the U.S., “We arrived at an agreement to resume the six-party talks as soon as possible, and China will announce the date of the meeting before long.”

Hill stated that the schedule for another Banco Delta Asia financial talk between North Korea and the United States would be decided before and after the next six-party talks, and that the venue for the financial talk has not been confirmed yet. He added Berlin is one of the candidates for the venue.

Cheon Yeong-woo, Korea’s chief delegate to the six-party talks, said, “If necessary, it is possible to meet North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan.” Kim, who arrived at around noon in Beijing, had a meeting with Wu and discussed the reopening date of the six-party talks after exchanging views with Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Losyukov in Moscow.

Reuters reported right after a meeting between Hill and DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Kim on January 17 that the U.S. Treasury is considering a plan to partially unfreeze North Korean capital worth roughly $24 million that had been frozen by the Macau authorities. However, the U.S. has made it clear that it would only partly lift restrictions under the firm principle that the unfreezing will not have any effect on the U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea that crack down on illegal financial and weapons transactions.

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