North Korea’s nuke envoy optimistic on six-party talks

NEW YORK (Yonhap News) ― North Korea’s chief nuclear envoy arrived in the United States Tuesday, expressing optimism for the long-stalled six-party talks on the communist regime’s nuclear program.

“The six-party talks will fare well,” the North’s vice foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, told reporters at New York’s JFK airport.

Ri plans to attend a three-day academic forum here to start on Wednesday.

He said there is no plan to meet separately with his South Korean counterpart, Lim Sung-nam, who is also scheduled to join the forum organized by the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.

Ri is also scheduled to participate in another conference to be held on Saturday by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, according to diplomatic sources.

Ri’s visit comes days after the North and the U.S. announced a breakthrough in efforts to start full-fledged bilateral and multilateral talks on denuclearization.

In their high-level talks in Beijing late last month, the North agreed to freeze its uranium-enrichment program at the Yongbyon nuclear site and refrain from nuclear and long-range missile tests while dialogue is under way.

In return, the U.S. promised 240,000 tons of food aid, excluding rice and grain. Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, and senior U.S. Agency for International Development official Jon Brause are in Beijing to meet North Korean counterparts to finalize discussions on technical issues related to providing “nutritional assistance.”

The Beijing deal was hailed as a “small but meaningful” step towards the resumption of the six-party talks that have been deadlocked for more than three years. The other participants are South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.

The U.S. State Department, however, said there are no official meetings scheduled between Ri and any U.S. government officials during his visit.