Seoul, Washington fine tune details on North Korea’s denuclearization,Talks seen to have addressed sanctions issue By Kim Bo-eun
U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun speaks with his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon at the foreign ministry building in Seoul, Monday. / Yonhap
The top nuclear envoys of South Korea and the United States met in Seoul, Monday, to discuss North Korea’s denuclearization.
U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun and his South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon, representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, had met in Washington seven days previously.
“We have a shared goal here, which is to bring an end to 70 years of war and hostility on the Korean Peninsula, and the primary requirement for us to get to that end is to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea,” Biegun said ahead of the meeting at the foreign ministry building.
Lee expressed hopes of “seeing (Biegun) with the North Korean representative as quickly as possible to find a breakthrough.”
He was referring to the current stall in denuclearization talks between North Korea and the United States.
Pyongyang has yet to provide a response on when and where its vice foreign minister Choe Son-hui will begin working-level talks with Biegun. Following the third inter-Korean summit last month, Washington invited Pyongyang for working-level meetings in Vienna, Austria.
North Korea and the U.S. have also yet to hold another high-level meeting, which U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated would take place soon.
The two sides are seen as likely attempting to narrow differences on the issue of allowing exemptions to sanctions for inter-Korean projects.
The government has been seeking the exemptions, stating that moving forward with inter-Korean relations will help bring progress in the North’s denuclearization.
The U.S. which leads the sanctions regime, however, has maintained the sanctions will remain intact until North Korea achieves complete denuclearization.
The South and North agreed at a high-level meeting earlier this month to hold a groundbreaking ceremony to connect their respective railway networks in late November or early December.
The Koreas also agreed at a meeting on forestry cooperation last week to upgrade 10 of the North’s tree nurseries within this year.
Because both projects require exemptions from U.N. Security Council and U.S. sanctions on the North, they have seen little progress.
The Ministry of Unification said Monday that talks were ongoing with relevant states on a plan to inspect railway tracks in the North, which need to take place for the groundbreaking ceremony to be held this year. The inspection had initially been scheduled to take place in August, but has been delayed for months due to issues concerning the sanctions.
Biegun also paid a courtesy visit on President Moon Jae-in and Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha.
Biegun and Kang “shared recent developments concerning denuclearization talks between North Korea and the U.S. as well as the advancement of inter-Korean relations, and discussed means to achieve complete denuclearization and establish a lasting peace system,” the foreign ministry said.
Biegun will speak with Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, speculation had been raised that Biegun might meet with North Korean negotiators at the truce village of Panmunjeom, but this appears unlikely, based on responses from the state department and foreign ministry.
This is Biegun’s fourth visit to Seoul since he was appointed in August.