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Nuclear Envoys From Two Koreas Meet in Bali
July 22, 2011

Wi Sung-lac, right, South Korea Wi Sung-lac, right, South Korea's nuclear envoy, talks with Ri Yong-ho, North Korea's vice foreign minister who handles nuclear diplomacy, during their meeting at a hotel in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Friday. The nuclear envoys of South and North Korea met on the sidelines of an Asian forum in Bali on Friday, an official in Seoul said, in the first high-level contact since tensions spiked on the Korean peninsula last year. (Reuters Photo)
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Nuclear envoys from North and South Korea held rare talks on Friday in the Indonesian island of Bali amid international efforts to revive stalled six-nation negotiations on the North’s atomic weaponry.

The meeting between South Korea’s Wi Sung-lac and his counterpart Ri Yong-ho was the first-ever North-South meeting on nuclear issues outside the six-party format, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said.

The North has previously refused to discuss its nuclear program with the South alone, saying it is intended as a deterrent against the United States.

Six-party host China had been pushing for an inter-Korean nuclear meeting, followed by US-North Korean talks, to pave the way for a resumption of the full dialogue.

Friday’s meeting came after more than a year of high tensions on the Korean peninsula, after Seoul accused its neighbor of two border attacks which killed 50 people in 2010.

Depending on the outcome of Friday’s talks, the South’s Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan could meet his North Korean counterpart Pak Ui-chun, probably on Saturday, the spokeswoman said.

The last round of six-party talks ended without agreement in December 2008. The North formally abandoned them in April 2009 and staged its second nuclear test a month later.

It has expressed conditional willingness to return to the forum, which groups China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.

But the United States, its ally South Korea and Japan say the North should first mend relations with its neighbor.

Seoul accuses Pyongyang of torpedoing a South Korean warship in March 2010 with the loss of 46 lives.

The North denies involvement. But it killed four people in a bombardment of a South Korean island last November, briefly sparking fears of war.

The South had demanded the North take responsibility for those attacks before any major dialogue. But in an attempt to break the diplomatic impasse, it said this condition would not apply to nuclear negotiations.

“It’s been a long time since I met you in London,” Wi told Ri as they started the talks on the sidelines of an Asian security conference, Yonhap news agency reported.

He was recalling their meeting at a security conference in Britain six years ago. “Yes, how nice to see you again,” Ri responded.

All six countries are attending the Asean Regional Forum this week.

Despite Friday’s meeting, the nominee for next US ambassador to South Korea voiced doubt on Thursday that the North was ready to return to serious negotiations.

“We’re not convinced that they really are ready to return to serious diplomacy and negotiations,” Sung Kim, who is now the special envoy to the moribund six-nation talks, told a Senate hearing on his nomination.

“This is why I think Seoul and Washington have both been very cautious in just rushing back to the negotiating table.

“In light of what has happened in the past two years, I think the North Koreans need to prove that they will in fact be a serious partner when the negotiations resume,” Sung Kim added.

Agence France-Presse