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Tuesday, October 01, 2019, 20:37
DPRK: Nuclear talks with US to resume this weekend
By Xinhua
Tuesday, October 01, 2019, 20:37 By Xinhua

In this June 11, 2018, file photo, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s Vice-Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, center, arrives for a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia Hotel in Singapore. The DPRK and the US have agreed to resume nuclear negotiations on Oct 5 following a months-long stalemate over withdrawal of sanctions in exchange for disarmament, a senior DPRK diplomat said Tuesday. (YONG TECK LIM / AP)

SEOUL, Republic of Korea — The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States have agreed to resume nuclear negotiations on Oct 5 following a months-long stalemate over withdrawal of sanctions in exchange for disarmament, a senior DPRK diplomat said Tuesday.

Choe Son-hui, The DPRK's first vice minister of foreign affairs, said the two nations will have preliminary contact on Oct. 4 before holding working-level talks on Oct 5

Choe Son-hui, DPRK's first vice-minister of foreign affairs, said the two nations will have preliminary contact on Friday before holding working-level talks on Saturday.

In a statement released by the DPRK's official Korean Central News Agency, Choe expressed optimism over the outcome of the meeting but did not say where it would take place.

"It is my expectation that the working-level negotiations would accelerate the positive development of the DPRK-US relations," Choe said in the statement. 

The US confirmed the talks.

"I can confirm that US and DPRK officials plan to meet within the next week. I do not have further details to share on the meeting," said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus, who is traveling with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Rome.

Nuclear negotiations have been at a standstill for months following a February summit between DPRK leader Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam. Those talks broke down after the US side rejected DPRK demands for broad sanctions relief in exchange for partially surrendering its nuclear capabilities.

ALSO READ: Trump: Deal with Kim thwarted by DPRK sanction demands

The DPRK followed the summit with belligerent rhetoric and a slew of short-range weapons tests that were widely seen as an attempt to gain leverage ahead of a possible resumption of negotiations.

Choe's announcement came after DPRK praised Trump last month for suggesting that Washington may pursue an unspecified "new method" in nuclear negotiations with the DPRK. The DPRK also has welcomed Trump's decision to fire hawkish former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who advocated a "Libya model" of unilateral denuclearization as a template for DPRK.

The 2004 disarmament of Libya is seen by Pyongyang as a deeply provocative comparison because Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was killed following US-supported military action in his country seven years after giving up a rudimentary nuclear program that was far less advanced than DPRK's.

The office of Republic of Korea's President Moon Jae-in, who lobbied hard to set up the first summit between Kim and Trump last year in Singapore, welcomed Choe's announcement and expressed hope that the resumed talks would result in "substantial progress" in denuclearization and stabilization of peace.

That's could be a tall order. Under the high-stakes diplomacy between Trump and Kim, which has been driven chiefly by the personalities of the leaders rather than an established diplomatic process, working-level meetings have been useful for fleshing out the logistics of summits but unproductive in hammering out the details of a nuclear deal that has eluded the countries for decades.

The stalemate of past months has revealed fundamental differences between the two sides. The DPRK says it will never unilaterally surrender its nuclear weapons and missiles and insists that US-led sanctions against it should be lifted first before any progress in negotiations.

The Trump administration has vowed to maintain robust economic pressure until the DPRK takes real steps toward fully and verifiably relinquishing its nuclear program.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said progress in working-level negotiations would depend on several factors, including whether Kim empowers his officials to negotiate concrete steps and whether the Trump administration embraces "a phased approach where summits and sanctions relief must be earned, but denuclearization is not decided all at once."

This are doubts about whether Kim would ever voluntarily deal away an arsenal he may see as his strongest guarantee of survival.

After their Singapore summit in June 2018, Trump and Kim issued a vague statement calling for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing how or when it would occur.

The lack of substance and fruitless working-level talks set up the failure in Hanoi, which the Americans blamed on what they said were excessive DPRK demands for sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling an aging nuclear facility in Yongbyon. Trump and Kim met for the third time at the inter-Korean border on June 30 and agreed that working-level talks between the countries should resume.

ALSO READ: Trump-Kim summit to focus on DPRK nuke complex, US rewards

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