Koreas to hold talks as North prepares to shut nuclear test site
SEOUL: North Korea and South Korea will hold high-level talks on Wednesday to discuss steps needed to uphold the pledge to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, South Korea said.
The meeting will focus on plans to implement a declaration that emerged from an April 27 interKorea summit, including promises to formally end the Korean War and pursue “complete denuclearisation”, the South’s unification ministry, which handles ties with the North, said on Tuesday.
North Korea has said it will dismantle its nuclear bomb test site some time between May 23 and May 25 in order to uphold its pledge to cease tests, its state media reported on Saturday, a month ahead of a planned North KoreaUS summit in Singapore.
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet on June 12, a scenario that until recently looked impossible given the insults and threats the two leaders exchanged over the past year as tension rose over the North’s relentless work on its missile and nuclear programmes.
But North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called in a New Year’s speech for a reduction in military tension, beginning a rapid easing of tension.
North Koreans appeared optimistic about the summit, the chief of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), David Beasley, told reporters in Seoul after a trip to the North.
“I think they’re hopeful. I think everyone on the ground there was hopeful,” Beasley said when asked whether the North Koreans he met had mentioned anything about the summit.
Beasley, who visited the North from May 8 to May 11, said WFP officials had been granted “unprecedented access” to some areas and had held “open, candid and frank discussions” with officials there.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday the United States would agree to lift sanctions on North Korea if it agreed to completely dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, a move that would create economic prosperity that “will rival” that of South Korea.
Last month, Pompeo became the first known US official to meet North Korean leader Kim, where he helped lay the groundwork for the meeting with Trump.
He returned again to North Korea this month for a second meeting, after which Kim agreed to the release of three American prisoners.
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