WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) -- In their first meeting since the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the top South Korean and U.S. nuclear envoys agreed Wednesday to resume talks with the communist nation if the “right conditions” are created, according to a South Korean official.
“First, (we) shared the opinion with the U.S. that it is important to stably manage security on the Korean Peninsula after the death of Chairman Kim Jong-il,” Lim Sung-nam, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security issues, told reporters, after emerging from talks lasting an hour and a half with U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies at the State Department. Davies did not speak to the media.
Regarding the North Korean nuclear issue, Lim said, the two sides agreed on the need to “resume the dialogue process under the right conditions.”
“Basically, as long as North Korea sends the right signal, I think the U.S. is adequately ready to hold talks again,” he added without elaborating about what the right conditions would entail.
Lim arrived in Washington earlier in the day. He is scheduled to leave for Seoul on Thursday.
The U.S. State Department said Lim and Davies also discussed the possibility of sending food aid to the North.
Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, briefed Lim on the results of his discussions in Beijing with Ri Gun, director general for North American affairs at North Korea‘s foreign ministry. King briefed him on the terms required for “nutritional assistance,” according to the department’s spokesman Mark Toner.
He said Washington is waiting for a signal from the North.
“We’re still looking for certain things from the North Koreans, and given that they’re in this mourning period, we’re going to have to let them emerge from that before we think we can move forward,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, visited the State Department on Wednesday.
He told Yonhap News Agency, “I just came to meet some officials.”
A department official said Kim had consultations with other officials while on a visit here for a year-end holiday. Kim took up the post in November, becoming the first Korean-born U.S. ambassador to South Korea.
