Six nations in North Korean nuclear talks to meet "in private"
A "private conference on nuclear plans" is the formula chosen to seek to return to the table of nuclear disarmament talks after official talks were dropped by North Korea last November.
Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) Delegates of "six-party nuclear talks" will participate in a "private conference" in Japan next week. The agreement reached between the parties involved has boosted hopes of a possible official resumption of dialogue.
Kim Kye-gwan, North Korean Foreign Affairs Minister, managed to get the go-ahead very rare of the leadership of the regime to go to Japan to attend the conference that will be held in Tokyo. The United States Embassy said the participation of delegates from all the nations negotiating nuclear disarmament China, Russia, the two Koreas, Japan and the USA itself was "now official".
Political analysts say the formula adopted to return to dialogue a private meeting "but somehow official", is the best way to bring back to the negotiating table all participants of the talks that have been stalled since November.
"Although this is a private forum, it could give us a good chance to pave the way for resolving North Korea's nuclear programmes," a senior Japanese government official said. Wu Dawei, Chinese deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, will not take part in the talks. "He will have contact with other heads of the delegations on the sidelines of the Japanese meeting," said Liu Jianchao, ministry spokesman. Beijing "will be presented by officials from the Foreign Ministry's Asia Affairs department".
For Lee Jong-seok, South Korean Unification said US and North Korean officials "could hold private one-on-one talks, to resolve their tensions and thus to return to the disarmament table". North Korea has refused to discuss nuclear disarmament since the Americans imposed sanctions on a Bank of Macao and North Korean companies, accused of money laundering. For Pyongyang, this is "only a pretext to seek to weaken the regime".
Representative of the two governments met in New York in March, but they did not manage to reach agreement: Christopher Hill, US chief negotiator however said "sanctions linked to laundering are a separate issue from the nuclear talks".
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