Ra to Visit China Next Week
2003-09-05
National security adviser Ra Jong-yil will visit China next week to follow up on last week's multilateral talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the Yonhap News Agency reported quoting the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae.
Ra will be in Beijing from Tuesday to Friday for talks with Chinese officials on the two countries' stances on the North's nuclear issue and regional security agendas for Northeast Asia, the presidential office said in a news release.
Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan is visiting Washington for coordination with the United States following the six-nation meeting in Beijing.
Envoys from South and North Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the U.S. attended the three-day Beijing meeting. The meeting ended without a clear breakthrough but the parties involved agreed to meet again for another round of talks. No date has been set.
South Korean officials said unofficially that the next meeting would be held in Beijing in October or November.
However, the prospect for talks was thrown into doubt after North Korea indicated that it would boycott them unless the United States shifts from its “hostile” policies toward the communist regime. China, one of the few remaining communist allies to North Korea, mediated actively to arrange the meeting last week.
The nuclear crisis erupted last October when a U.S. delegation to Pyongyang quoted North Korean officials as saying they had been secretly developing a nuclear weapons program.
Source : www.korea.net
