YONHAP NEWS

(2nd LD) Kim Kye-gwan pursues successful nuclear talks: report

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's chief nuclear envoy says he wants to successfully conclude nuclear talks with the U.S. and improve ties with the world's superpower.

   "We are committing our own efforts for the good result and for the good future of relations between our two nations and for successful talks with the United States and to defend the peace, which is the common goal of our two nations, the Americans and the people of the DPRK, to live as friends," Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan said in an interview aired on the Fox News program "On the Record" Monday evening.

   DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.

   "I wish the Americans well and wish everything goes well in the United States," Kim said in the interview with Fox in Pyongyang soon after he met with the Rev. Franklin Graham, who visited the North Korean capital in his capacity as the head of a relief organization. "I want peace in the United States."

   Kim's remarks come amid reports that his deputy, Ri Gun, arrived in Beijing Wednesday on his way to the U.S. for possible talks with U.S. officials on the sidelines of a seminar in San Diego early next week.

   U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in a daily news briefing that American officials will attend the meeting in San Diego, although the attendees have not yet been selected.

   "There will be at least one State Department official there," he said. "I don't have any confirmation about who that person will be. I hope to have maybe confirmation tomorrow."

   Sung Kim, special envoy for the six-party talks, is expected to fly to San Diego to meet with Ri to discuss preparations for a possible visit to Pyongyang by Steven Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy.

   North Korea extended an invitation to the U.S. point man on North Korea when former President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang in August to win the release of two American journalists.

   "We're willing to do it, willing to have bilateral talks if such talks will advance our goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Kelly said, but added, "No decision has been made on whether to accept the invitation."

   Ri, director general of the North American affairs bureau of North Korea's Foreign Ministry, has been invited to participate in the Northeast Asia Cooperative Dialogue (NEACD) at the University of California, San Diego, set for Oct. 26-27, and also to a seminar in New York hosted by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the Korea Society.

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

   North Korean leader Kim Jong-il recently agreed to return to the multilateral talks on the condition that bilateral talks with the U.S. produce results.

   The U.S. has said it will continue sanctioning the North until Pyongyang returns to the six-party forum and takes substantial denuclearization steps. U.S. officials believe that the sanctions have effectively pressured the North to makes conciliatory gestures after months of provocations.

   In Beijing, Philip Goldberg, inter-agency coordinator for U.N. sanctions on North Korea, told reporters earlier in the day that "What we were able to restate today is that there is a commitment to implementing the sanctions as an essential aspect of our overall goal of returning to the denuclearization discussions. And so on that there is no point of disagreement."

   Goldberg was discussing the outcome of his meetings with Chinese officials on implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea.

   "We are focused on the nuclear, missile and proliferation activities from North Korea, targeting those entities and individuals involved in those programs, and that process continues," he said. "We want to return to a multilateral format but we are ready to also, within that framework, engage bilaterally. We will have announcements when we have announcements on how that's going."

   hdh@yna.co.kr
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