Washington, April 18: The US secretary of state has called for resumption of the stalled six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program in a meeting with South Korean officials.
Hillary Clinton arrived in Seoul on Saturday for talks aimed at dealing with North’s nuclear program and paving the way for ratification of a free trade pact between Washington and Seoul, a Media correspondent reported on Sunday.
In a meeting with South Korea’s Prime Minister Kim Hwang-Sik, she applauded the Asian country’s efforts to combat trade in nuclear weapons and technology, and further discussed conditions under which both inter-Korean and the six-party nuclear talks can resume.
Seoul’s desire for Pyongyang’s acceptance of responsibility for the deadly skirmishes in 2010 was also the focal point of talks between the US top diplomat and her South Korean counterpart Kim Sung-Hwan.
Tensions have been running high on the Korean Peninsula since November last year when an exchange of artillery fire in the Yellow Sea border island of Yeonpyeong left four South Koreans dead.
The visit comes following a recent meeting between North Korean and Chinese nuclear envoys in Beijing, where the two sides discussed a three-step process to resolve Pyongyang’s nuclear issue.
The process involves a meeting of the chief nuclear envoys from the two Koreas, a resumption of Pyongyang-Washington negotiations, and the six-way talks.
North Korea left the talks in April 2009 after the United Nations imposed tougher sanctions for conducting nuclear and missile tests. The six-way negotiations include Russia, China, the US, Japan, South Korea and North Korea.
Meanwhile, some experts in Seoul argue that the burden is now on the US to do its part in pushing the two Koreas back to the negotiating table, if only for political concerns.
“The Chinese government has been pressing the US to resuscitate the six-party talks process, and also President Obama himself is also obliged to rekindle the six-party talks processes so that he can show to the American people that he is making diplomatic progress on the verifiable dismantling of North Korean nuclear weapons,” political expert Moon Chung-In told Media.
——–Agencies