Subscribe
E-Paper
 |
| Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha speaks in a National Assembly seminar on March 7, organized to discuss the result of the recent summit between the U.S. and North Korea. / Yonhap |
By Lee Min-hyung
South Korea and the United States will hold a working group meeting in Washington Thursday (local time) to seek a breakthrough in the nuclear impasse between Washington and Pyongyang, the South's foreign ministry said.
Seoul and Washington plan to exchange up-to-date information on inter-Korean and Washington-Pyongyang relations during the meeting in response to the breakdown of the Hanoi summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last month, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Rhee Dong-yeol, director-general of the ministry's Korean Peninsula peace regime bureau, will head the South Korean delegation for talks with his U.S. counterpart led by Alex Wong, deputy assistant secretary for North Korea.
The meeting comes at a critical juncture when Washington and Pyongyang need to bring their now-suspended nuclear talks back on the right track for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
"Seoul will update Washington on recent exchanges with North Korea during their upcoming meeting, and vice versa," a ministry official said. "The South will also hold an in-depth discussion with the U.S. over inter-Korean cooperation and other pending issues on the North."
Washington had in recent months been on friendly terms with Pyongyang, before the much-anticipated Hanoi summit in Vietnam ended up in fiasco.
The optimistic pre-summit atmosphere raised hopes for Trump and Kim to sign a possible deal that can move forward their denuclearization talks in a smooth and rapid way.
But with both sides declaring "no deal" in their second meeting, South Korea was flustered by the unexpected outcome. Calls have since grown for Seoul and Washington to hold the meeting as soon as possible to come up with countermeasures for the failed Hanoi summit.
Moon Chung-in, security adviser to President Moon Jae-in, also underlined the need for Seoul, as a "peace facilitator," to actively engage in talks with Washington and Pyongyang.
"It is not desirable for Washington and Pyongyang to be in a rush to resume their nuclear talks, but both sides will lose their dialogue momentum if they delay the talks for a long period of time," the adviser said in a recent forum.
To prevent such a scenario from taking place, South Korea should make efforts for the U.S. and the North to keep in touch with each other, according to him.
Aside from affairs related with the North's denuclearization, the two delegations will also discuss their views on the resumption of inter-Korean economic projects.
They include the reopening of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and resumption of tourism to the North's Mount Geumgang.
But South Korea cannot push ahead with such inter-Korean economic engagements, as North Korea is under heavy sanctions from the United Nations Security Council.
The Ministry of Unification, the authority handling inter-Korean economic cooperation, said it would continue to discuss details with the U.S. and other relevant parties before taking specific actions for the projects.
Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung said Tuesday all the inter-Korean economic projects will be reviewed under close negotiations with other countries due to sanctions on the North.
