Senior diplomats from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan are expected to gather in Washington next week to coordinate cooperation over North Korea’s nuclear programs and other regional issues.
Cho Tae-yong, the Foreign Ministry’s new special representative for Korean peninsular peace and security affairs, plans to visit the U.S. capital on June 18-20. On the way back, he will stop at Beijing for talks with officials including Wu Dawei, China’s special representative for Korean peninsular affairs.
During the three-day stay, he will meet with Glyn Davies, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, and Shinsuke Sugiyama, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau. The envoys are chief negotiators for the stalled six-nation talks aimed at denuclearizing North Korea.
The envisioned trilateral consultations, the first in six months, came after planned inter-Korean dialogue collapsed at the last minute Tuesday as the two Koreas failed to agree on lead delegates.
For Cho, next week’s trip will be his first since assuming the post late last month and provide opportunities to build rapport with his counterparts.
The diplomats are also forecast to review the outcome of a recent meeting of U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which they reaffirmed joint efforts at disarming Pyongyang. South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with Obama last month and is scheduled to hold her first summit with Xi later this month.
Another likely item on the agenda is the ASEAN Regional Forum slated for June 30-July 2 in Brunei, where the three countries’ foreign ministers may meet on the sidelines as they did last year.
By Shin Hyon-hee
(
heeshin@heraldcorp.com)
