YONHAP NEWS

(LEAD) U.S. will issue visa for Ri Gun: reports

(ATTN: ADDS more details in 4th para, State Dept. spokesman's remarks at bottom)
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (Yonhap) -- The United States has decided to allow a senior North Korean official to attend a seminar in San Diego later this month, reports said, amid talk of imminent bilateral negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea over the latter's nuclear ambitions.

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The U.S. government has decided to grant a visa to Ri Gun, director general of the North American affairs bureau of North Korea's Foreign Ministry, Reuters said, citing informed sources. Kim Myong-gil, deputy chief of the North Korean mission to the U.N. in New York, meanwhile, said that Ri has been given a visa for the seminar, according to the Associated Press.

   Ri, concurrently deputy to North Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, has been invited to a seminar in San Diego Oct. 26-27 by the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, organized by the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego, to bring together academics as well as government officials of the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, members of the six-way talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

   Ri will likely meet with U.S. officials on the sidelines of the seminar to prepare for possible bilateral talks between the two sides.

   Last November, Ri visited New York to attend an academic seminar soon after the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president, and met with Sung Kim, special envoy for the six-party talks, and other U.S. officials and key policy advisers to Obama.

   Jung Tae-yang, vice director general of the American bureau of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, attended last year's session in Beijing of the NEACD, as did Alexander A. Arvizu, then-deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

   U.S. officials have said they have not yet made a decision on a possible visit to Pyongyang by Stephen Bosworth, special representative for North Korea policy, although they fell short of precluding bilateral talks with the North Koreans to woo them back to the six-party table.

   Pyongyang extended an invitation to Bosworth when former U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang in August to win the release of two American journalists and discuss North Korean nuclear and other issues.

   Rep. Hong Jung-wook of South Korea's ruling Grand National Party said last week that working bilateral talks between the U.S. and North Korea, possibly involving Bosworth's subordinate Sung Kim, will take place "within two weeks at the earliest or a month at the latest."

   North Korea has been boycotting the six-party negotiations, citing U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests earlier this year, although its leader, Kim Jong-il, recently expressed his willingness to return to the multilateral talks on the condition that bilateral talks with the U.S. produce results.

   U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed a possible bilateral dialogue with North Korea earlier this week.

   "We're looking to restart the six-party process," Clinton said. "We may use some bilateral discussions to help get that process going, but that is not in any way linked to relaxing any sanctions whatsoever."

   Ian Kelly, spokesman for the State Department, meanwhile, told a daily news briefing that Philip Goldberg, inter-agency coordinator for U.N. sanctions on North Korea, will travel to Beijing Sunday to meet with Chinese officials "for discussions regarding implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea."

   Goldberg will be accompanied by Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Danny Glaser and representatives from the National Security Council and the Defense Department, before coming back home Wednesday, Kelly said.

   U.S. officials have said that they will continue sanctioning the North until Pyongyang returns to the six-party talks and takes substantial denuclearization steps. Officials believe that implementation of the sanctions has effectively pressured the North to give conciliatory gestures after months of provocations earlier this year.

   hdh@yna.co.kr
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