Six-Party Talks to Resume Early Next Month

The North Korean nuclear issue faces a new phase as Sung Kim of the Office of Korean Affairs at the U.S. Department of State and his company came back from Pyongyang with documents detailing the communist state’s nuclear program.

It is expected that the six-party talks will be resumed early next month to discuss the composition of a unit to verify North Korea’s nuclear declaration and its related methods.

The U.S. envoys including Kim are known to have coordinated the contents of the nuclear declaration North Korea is to hand in to China and the details to be contained in the unofficial document to be exchanged between Pyongyang and Washington.

It is likely that North Korea will hand in the nuclear declaration to China, which chairs the six-party talks, this weekend or next week. At the same time, the United States is expected to notify the Congress that North Korea will be removed from the list of the supporters of terrorism, in accordance with the “the principle of action-for-action.”

The U.S. State Department announced in a statement on Saturday and said, “North Korea handed over documents over 180,000 pages on its nuclear programs to the U.S. envoys led by Director Sung Kim of the Office of Korean Affairs on Thursday in Pyongyang. The verification team and experts of the United States will scrutinize the contents very closely.”

jin0619@donga.com