US envoy to visit peninsula amid tensions
A US envoy was due to start a visit to the Republic of Korea on Wednesday, officials said, as Washington and Pyongyang struggle to find a breakthrough in their stalled talks aimed at denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.
Stephen Biegun, the US special representative for the issue of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was expected to stay for four days, a diplomatic source told Reuters.
The DPRK’s top leader Kim Jong-un vowed to work toward denuclearization at his landmark summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June but the two sides have since made little progress.
They have yet to reschedule talks between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior DPRK official Kim Yong-chol after canceling a meeting in November.
Trump has said a second summit with Kim is likely to take place in January or February, though he wrote on Twitter last week that he is “in no hurry”.
The stalled negotiations have also had an impact on inter-Korean ties, with Pyongyang aloof toward Seoul’s plan to host Kim in Seoul this month as agreed at his summit with ROK President Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang in September.
Kim’s trip was unlikely to take place this year, Moon’s press secretary said last week.
The ROK’s Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, who is due to meet Biegun on Friday, said the nuclear talks would face a critical moment between February and March.
“I think it is fair to say that the denuclearization process is not yet on track in earnest,” Cho was quoted by the Yonhap News Agency as telling reporters.
“Next year, we can see whether they will have a chance to get closer to the objectives.”
Biegun’s visit also comes at a sensitive time when Pyongyang had harsh words for Washington over the weekend for imposing sanctions against senior DPRK officials, criticizing the US State Department for being “bent on bringing DPRK-US relations back to the status of last year, which was marked by exchanges of fire”.
Meanwhile, Pyongyang and Seoul have been on the track of forming a closer relationship. The two sides will hold a groundbreaking ceremony next week at Panmun Station in the DPRK’s border town of Kaesong to modernize and eventually connect a railway and roads across the inter-Korean border.
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said recently that China encourages the United States and the DPRK to advance denuclearization on the peninsula.