Washington: Senior US and North Korean
officials may not meet again in New York as little progress
was made at their last meeting in resuming the stalled
multilateral talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs, a
senior State Department official said here.
"There are no plans to have another kind of formal
sit-down," the official said of a meeting between Sung Kim, US
special envoy to the six-party talks, and Ri Gun, director
general of the North American affairs bureau of North Korea's
Foreign Ministry.
The official, requesting anonymity, said that although
the previous meeting between the two in New York last week was
a welcome development, it produced little tangible results for
restarting the nuclear talks.
"I think it was a good dialogue and they were able to air
a lot of issues. I don't think I am prepared to say there was
progress towards resuming the six-party talks though," the
official said.
North Korea agreed in September 2005 to dismantle its
nuclear programmes in an aid-for-denuclearisation deal struck
at the six-party talks involving North and South Korea, the
United States, China, Japan and Russia.
But North Korea withdrew from the six-way talks in April
to protest the UN Security Council's condemnation of its
rocket launch.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, October 29, 2009, 14:50